WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS A KLINGON STARSHIP?
by Northernbloke
Summary: Gul Dukat finds himself a man alone, the only Cardassian left who is willing to fight a one ship war to reverse the fortunes of his people who have been browbeaten by invasion and collapse. When all seems lost, a mysterious encounter with an alien who lives on the other side of our galaxy offers the potential salvation for Dukats beleaguered empire, or its total destruction.
1. A Private Little War

THE clustered fuel silos ruptured on impact as the torpedo that dealt the killer blow detonated – for it's own part the fuel within ignited, causing the silo to shred as if it were made of tissue paper. The blast from this caused the neighbouring silo to erupt and explode in turn, and so on and so on until the whole fuel depot was consumed by the conflagration. It was a fiery; blossoming dull violet rose flower of death and destruction that was playing out for those who had caused the demise of that depot and were now making a hasty retreat so they themselves were not caught up in the destruction that they had sown, and were now admiring their handiwork courtesy of the aft view display on the Klingon bird of preys main viewscreen. Gul Dukat watched as the explosion had swallowed up the entire depot and the fireball was snuffed out due to a combination of lack of an oxygen atmosphere on the planet, and the very low surface temperature of the planet. He also knew that the explosion had proceeded with such ferocity that it had consumed all of the fuel and the depot as well as the Klingon staff who manned it in a manner of seconds, Dukat realised that with a combination of all these factors, the fireball had abated so quickly simply because there was nothing left down there to physically burn any more. He saw how in the regions directly next to the where the explosion had taken place that the shallow liquid methane lakes and the hydrocarbon clouds and rains surrounding the depot had evaporated due to the heat, leaving an almost spherical zone around the remains of the depot where the normally mist saturated air was clear as the energy from the explosion had vaporised the hydrocarbons in that clear zone, though even a mere handful of seconds after the blast the edges of the sphere were laced with the swirlings of newly formed and clearly agitated mists. The vapours were beginning to cool as they spread further away from the heat source and were now starting to re-condense back into the atmosphere as mist.

Dukat could see that the sphere of clear air was only a temporary and fleeting phenomenon. It was a strangely beautiful thing to witness that explosion he thought. For as destructive and deadly it had been, the forces of nature unleashed at his commands were stunning in their lethal beauty, though Dukat mused that the one hundred Klingons who manned that base probably derived considerably far less enjoyment from their [brief] first hand views of the depots final moments. Dukat reckoned with near almost certainty that not one of them had survived that blast even though some had tried to flee in escape pods, all of which had been caught up in the fireball cruelly quashing their pathetic attempts at self preservation. Dukat felt not one iota of sympathy for the hapless Klingons. It was the price one paid for invading sovereign Cardassian territory even if they were non combatant civilians. As far as he was concerned they were invaders who deserved no sympathy or mercy, so Dukat had garnered them with none – it was his people's way after all.

Dukat smiled and addressed the crew of the bird of prey he himself had christened the Neprem after the Bajoran women who had been his favourite "comfort woman" during the occupation of her own world. They had been right; it was lonely at the top, and he had borne all the responsibilities and pressures of being prefect of Bajor alone. Dukat had felt justified in indulging in such pleasures when they presented themselves, though he knew his wife hadn't seen it that way when she left him and took the children after his "indiscretions" had been made very public by the revelation of his half Bajoran daughter Ziyal who he had fathered with Neprem. "Well men I believe we can add the destruction of the Klingon Defence Forces primary fuel depot on Almatha 7 as another one of our resounding victories against the enemy. Without that depot, the KDF's ability to conduct raids in the Almatha sector will be severely stretched to near breaking point. If we can keep snapping at their heels, constantly undermining and disrupting their ability to coordinate their fleet in a meaningful way we could lead the way to drive them out the sector completely. All of that we can accomplish with just one ship and a dedicated crew made up of the true sons of Cardassia. That was the spirit that has allowed our people to build our empire from the ground up. When our people strove to earn the fear and respect of the entire quadrant. Though our so called leaders may have forgotten those values we have not, and we will make sure that the Klingons and the Maquis and whoever else thinks that they can just walk all over and seize the birthright that our forefathers built with true Cardassian grit, will never forget, again and again and again!"

Dukat watched as the crew nodded in agreement and when his speech had ended they gave the typical cupped slow hand clap which was a traditional military style applause granted to a commanding officer. This formality had fallen increasingly out of use these days, but under the circumstances, Dukat had deliberately harked back to a more traditional military style on the Neprem. If they who were fighting for the values that had made their people great when others seemingly neglected to do so in greater and greater numbers these days – didn't, then who would? Dukat had become painfully aware of how in the past few years since the withdrawal from Bajor, that the stature of the Cardassian Union had been on a diminishing trajectory. Dukat still shuddered with rage at how he was forced to wrap up the colonisation project he had headed on Bajor by those spineless civilian leaders who hadn't the stomach to make the tough decisions and to have stayed the course on that world. If only they had held their nerve he was sure he could have "domesticated" the Bajorans, to make them finally see that fate had bestowed them to the service of their Cardassian betters. That he was now seen by others to have been driven off what back in the day he had increasingly thought of as his personal fiefdom – by the likes of that peasant farmer Shakaar and his "freedom fighter" rabble.

Dukat painfully recalled that it had been a downwards spiral for the empire since the day of withdrawal. In the wake of the withdrawal from Bajor, had arisen a series of peace treaties with the Federation; those meddling do-gooders and their "peace" designed to rein his people in. That the empire had had to sign another peace treaty with the Bajorans of all people showed how far Cardassia had fallen. The cheeky bastards were actually demanding the Cardassians offer an official apology and reparations for the so called occupation. Those inferiors actually wanted Cardassia to prostrate herself in front of them for attempting to bring civilisation and rule of law to their planet! Unthinkable once, but who knew these days? Although Dukat admitted that there had been "improprieties" committed during his rule by his men, he was always keen to point out that this would all have been avoided if the Bajorans had accepted their status and not resorted to the hideous acts of terrorism that had killed and maimed Cardassian patriots and their own Bajoran kith and kin as well. The Bajorans always seemed to omit this uncomfortable fact when they carped to all and sundry about how they had been "oppressed" by his people. Cardassia had endured further humiliation by the Maquis raids on the border with the Federation. These frontier rabble were a festering sore on the body of the union, that in the days of Cardassian ascension would have been dealt with like any infection and completely eradicated from the body itself and not be allowed to spread with impunity as they did these days.

Finally the coup de grace of Cardassias misfortunes had been the Klingon invasion, that continued seemingly unchecked. The new civillian administration was committed to putting out peace feelers rather than making efforts to repel the invasion. The truth was that Cardassians, or the ones that ruled his people, no longer wanted to fight for the empire, or even had the vision or guts to have what it takes to slog it out as a major player in a cruel universe. They had given up and had admitted defeat. It incensed Dukat that in seemingly two to three generations, his people had gone from empire builders to spineless prevaricators. One day, Dukat swore to himself – they will discover the real truth over who was to blame for these monumental blunders. History would judge him right in the end he was sure.

Dukat knew that although the Detapa council may be willing to admit defeat and settle for mediocrity and a second class status for his people, he was certainly not going to just take it all lying down. He knew that lesser men than him would have felt that they had been dealt a bad hand or were in the wrong place at the wrong time had they been forced to walk in his shoes. From the humiliating retreat from Bajor, to being demoted from chief military advisor to a pacifist government (a contradiction in terms he knew) to a mere freighter captain due to his indiscretion with Naprem and the truth of his daughter Ziyal laid bare. To him winding up as a renegade in self imposed exile on this stinking bird of prey, taking on the armed forces of a galactic super power single handedly. Dukat felt not a flicker of self pity despite him being entirely justified to possibly feel that way. He had always been a great believer in destiny and fate. He was here fighting the Klingons on this ship for a reason. Events didn't just happen at random, or were the result of capricious blind chance, he was sure of that. Since childhood he had always had a sense that his destiny was inextricably linked to that of the Cardassian union itself. That he and the union were in a sense a sort of individual entity almost. As his empire seemed to have hit rock bottom, so he found himself alone out here. Dukat now knew that he was out here to become the nations salvation. That the solutions to his peoples plight were in the reach of this commandeered Klingon contraption. The universe was almost handing him the pieces of the puzzle, providing in its own way the answers to help his people if he was willing to solve the puzzles it put in his way. He just needed to put the pieces in the right order. That voice in his head returned again whenever he dwelt internally on such matters. "Things will change for my people. I will see to that and the universe will provide for me the means to do so. I have to keep looking and seizing the opportunities as they a put in front of me." And this time Dukat had a feeling that those opportunities were very close to hand.

Dukat looked over at his second in command Glin Damar, a loyal officer who had served with Dukat for several years now and who he considered a friend and confidant. A man needed someone like Damar in the situation they found themselves in; dependable and capable, all good assets for the XO of a renegade officer fighting a one ship war against a whole empire. Damar had noticed that Dukat was looking directly at him and he give his own assessment of the destruction of the fuel depot. "Did you see that thing go up like a firework display on Patriots day in Lakarian City? Hell of a bang." Dukat smiled and said. "Yes Damar strangely enough the destruction of the base we planned to destroy before hand and succeeded in doing so managed not to escape my attention! I'm afraid cabin fever hasn't quite set in on this Klingon garbage scow yet!" Damar looked a little perturbed as if he had unintentionally insulted his CO's intelligence. Dukat thought that Damar had to lighten up a little sometimes. Not take everything so literally." "Sorry sir no offence. I did notice that those Klingon trash were very keen to escape their fate. Today not a good day to die for them huh? Death rather than dishonour my ass! I'll bet jumping ship and trying to save their own skin will go down well with Fek'lhr down there in Gre'thar!"

Damar sneered as he spat out his contempt for his enemies, his disdain was, as was usual with Damar – liberally peppered by his innate racial prejudice towards non Cardassians. Dukat was surprised owever that Damar could name drop figures from alien mythology like that. Dukat had noticed how Damar seemed so much more animated and alive since they had hijacked the Neprem. He had taken to the life of a rebel freedom fighter like a Terran duck had to water. Damar was in Dukat's opinion "uncomplicated" and a dooer. He didn't truck in nuance and subtlety. Previously he had often seen morose and rather dour when face with the red tape and particulars of standard military life. Perhaps the relative simplicity of what they were doing, find Klingons; shoot at them; find some more and shoot at them, suited his temperament and personality, so it was understandable really that he had found his comfort zone in this unlikeliest of places. "Good for him, a true son of Cardassia." Dukat thought.

Damar spoke again "What target shall we aim for next Gul? There is radio traffic originating from the Oort cloud around Amleth prime. The signature I am picking up suggests a convoy of military freighters may be sneaking towards the front lines. A tempting target for us and we'll be robbing those Klingon monkeys of their precious disruptors into the bargain! Hah I'd like to see them defend themselves from us armed only with a poxy batleth!" Damar sniggered as he mentally pictured Klingon warriors fruitlessly denting their Batleths by delivering blows onto the hull of a bird of prey. Who knows? They were probably stupid and zealous enough to try it as a viable battle strategy. "Good choice Damar, our disrupters should make light work of those freighters. You may even get another pretty explosion out of it to admire as well. Alright Dalim Kendro, set course 324 mark 78. Destination is the source of thatr radio traffic in the Oort cloud at Amleth prime, warp eight. I want a vectored approach, cloak after entry to warp and silent running. I want it so we'll have blasted them to ionised gas and be a thousand away before anyone can so much as raise the alarm. The helmsman duly complied and the ship entered warp, Dukat could tell that the ship had cloaked due to instrumentation and that the brief rippling affect had been visible on the viewscreen. The light bending processes had briefly distorted the view, but the onboard computers automatically compensated for that effect. The ship, effectively invisible to unwitting victims was ready to pounce. Sto'vo'kor was going to be having a busy day today if Dukat had anything to do with it.


	2. A Cardassian Twilight

**2. A Cardassian Twilight.**

AROUND eighteen hours after they had set course for Amleth Damar announced that they were receiving an inbound transmission that was pegged for Dukats ears only "Sir, the message is originating from Cardassia Prime. It's for your ears only. Do I break radio silence and let you receive the message, or should I ignore it, continue on with our silent running?" Dukat headed towards the captains ready room just off of the bridge. "No Damar it is ok, I'll take the message in my office. Please patch it through to my console there." "Yessir" said Damar who was plainly surprised Dukat would be taking calls during a self imposed blanketing on radio transmissions that he himself had ordered. Dukat entered the cramped ready room his last glimpse of the bridge was his confused looking XO putting the call through for him. Dukat knew who the caller was before he picked the message, although he was surprised to be receiving a call here and now as no communications had been prescheduled.

Dukat answered the hail and saw the face of his old friend Legate Turkino who now unenviably had Dukats old job of being chief military advisor to a Detapa council seemingly determined to shun any military advice whatsoever, Dukat knew that despite the excellent salary the position offered, Turkino found it as unfulfilling and frustrating as he had done. "Skrain! Sorry to disrupt your ongoing mission to be the galaxy's number one scourge of the Klingons, but I have a little mission for you if you're interested. We picked up sensor readings that the IKC Gespagh, one of the Klingons Negh'Vah class command ships was seen in orbit of the third moon of El-Gatark 6. It appears that the command ship appears to be coordinating some sort of fleet exercise where it is deploying some kind of weapon on the surface of the planetoid in question. It doesn't look like the ship is so far engaged in combat operations, but we'd like to check out what the Klingons are up too in greater detail and that, my friend is where you come in. Our ships can't get too close to that cruiser without risking destruction or severe damage, let alone the danger of being spotted performing espionage. The Gespagh; she packs a mean punch after all. Not to mention that she is supported by other vessels as well. A Cardassian cruiser wouldn't fare too well against odds like that. But if, say we had a rogue Cardassian officer, who had happened to chance upon a bird of prey with its functioning cloaking device. Well he could sneak in and get an up close and personal view as to what our foreheaded friends are up to in that sector."

Dukat frowned a little at this. The El-Gatark system was located in a roundabout way on their current flight path to Amleth, although it was out of the way enough that it would heavily delay blasting those freighters and their weapons which would be used against his own people. You didn't get too much of a window of opportunity on attack missions. Distractions like this were not welcomed. "We were on our way to deal with some freighters shipping battle weapons to the front. Can't we deal with those first and then find out what the command ship is up to once our original mission is done?"

Turkino nodded at Dukats frustration. He'd have felt the same if their roles had been reversed, but he went on to explain "I understand how this puts you out old friend. However the Gespagh is one of the largest and most senior capitals ships deployed in the invasion forces. If she cloaks or suddenly departs then we've lost our window of opportunity to find out what she's up to. She's too dangerous to ignore. Your our eyes and ears Skrain. I'm sorry to put a dampener on a soldiers combat lust, this has to come first."

Dukat glumly nodded in acknowledgement. He supposed Turkino was correct but he was still annoyed that his mission had been disrupted. It was the strange chain of command structure that existed between Dukat and the Cardassian Union and his ambiguous status as a "rogue" officer, that he considered Turkino to be the senior officer he "reported" to. Officially the Detapa council and the military denied that Dukat had gone rogue in a captured bird of prey and was out there pursuing his private little war against the Klingons. Indeed the invading Klingons considered this rogue bird of prey that was supposedly flying around, was in fact a semi myth; possibly just a Cardassian trick to wrong foot them, or the misinterpreted post hoc end result of a series of sneak attacks. Unofficially, friendly elements of the military covertly supported Dukat - albeit in a hushed up manner and provided them with intel and secret supplies. Many in the military command Dukat had discovered, were aghast at the spinelessness the Detapa council showed in dealing with the Klingons. Thus proving they were the useless civvies they had always thought they were. The Detapa council for their part, had three reasons for not trying to rein Dukat in. Firstly by him destroying Klingon invader,s he was lessening a real threat to the Union territories and for all their cowardice in the face of invasion, they weren't stupid enough to not realise that. Secondly the rumours of the rogue bird of prey and of renegade Guls (it was rumoured that Dukat had spurned on others to pursue their own private little wars too.) went down well with the public who were much more hard line in how to deal with the Klingons than their political masters seemed to be. From a PR perspective what Dukat was doing went down well and so he was tolerated. Lastly he knew that many in the civillian and military circles were happy to see Dukat do his Cardassian duty, as long as those duties were as far away from Cardassia and themselves as possible. So here he found himself reporting to his friend Turkino in these totally unofficial and unreported briefings about sorties that officially never happened in a nonexistent captured Klingon ship.

Dukat saw that Turkino was sat in the office that he himself occupied when he had briefly held that role himself, though Turkino had added his own home furnishings since then including the wall tapestries his wife was so fond of making. He also saw that Turkino was troubled about something, something that he hadn't let on about yet. It must have been some seriously bad news for him to be holding back. Turkino was usually pretty earnest about how Cardassia was shaping up in his briefings. That was why they were not always pleasant affairs despite Dukat enjoying his friends company whilst he was out here. Dukat attempted to try to probe it out of him "Cheer up Turkino. My crew and I will get to the bottom of what those bastards are playing at in El-Gatark. What do you think the odds are of one bird of prey against a Klingon command ship? A victory like that might make even those Detapa clowns take more active steps to defend our territory!" Dukat was half joking, as a bird of prey wasn't any kind of a match for such a vessel, but a man could dream could he not? Turkino, however looked crestfallen, and almost seemed to be having trouble meeting Dukat eye to eye. Turkino finally responded his voice filled with such sadness that he sounded haunted. "I don't think even that would make a difference. Not after what I was told today."

Dukat felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. What had those fools who ran things these days been playing at this time around. "Turkino. Whatever is wrong. What have you heard? You sound like someone has died" Turkino continued. "Something has died my friend. Cardassian dignity and honour has. Our government says they are proposing radical steps to deal with the aftermath of the Klingon invasion. Would you like to hear what they are?" Turkinos voice was full of bitterness and contempt for whoever had proposed these "steps" Dukat knew this was going to be bad, he was dreading to find out what Turkino knew but find out he must.

"The Detapa council has decided that the Klingon invasion has rendered the Cardassian outposts and colonies in the four sectors affected by the theatre of battle both unsustainable and undefendable. As the trading routes and supply lines around them have been effectively interdicted and rendered unmanageable by the fighting, and as our merchant shipping and essential infrastructure such as health and power have all but collapsed in the afflicted regions, it has left them with no choice but to surrender all claims of sovereignty to these regions and yield them to the Klingon empire. The council has no choice but to abandon the colonies and evacuate the colonists from their homes and livelihoods. Any who wish to stay or refuse to move will effectively have to submit to Klingon rule as the Cardassian Union can no longer effectively defend them. They will lose citizenship as their homes no longer fall under the jurisprudence of Cardassian law. In addition the proposed independence of the colonies deeded to us by the Federation in the DMZ is being mooted, as the empire simply doesn't have the resources to commit itself to fight the Klingons and to simultaneously deal with the terrorist campaign being waged by the Maquis insurgents in that region "

Dukat sat there totally stunned. He knew the civilian government was utterly useless, but this! It was the sheer scale of it all. They'd effectively decided to give a third of the empire away to an aggressor who had launched an unprovoked invasion over territory they had absolutely no basis to stake any sort of claim over. That their once mighty empire was going to bend to the guerilla actions of a bunch of nondescript colonists even the Federation wanted rid of! If these "submissions" went ahead his people would be the laughing stock of the quadrant. How could the Cardassian soul ever survive this sort of capitulation and humiliation on this level? Dukat shook his head."That can't be possible Turkino! Not even that lot could be so spineless as to hand a third of the union territories to the Klingons just like that."

Turkino sighed at this and with that brief gesture Dukat knew that all this was more than mere worst case scenario bureaucratic hot air. "The plans to provide ships for the evacuation of the colonists have already been drawn up I've seen them with my own eyes. You know how indecisive this civilian administration can be. How everything is constantly bogged down in procedure and bureaucratic meddling. If they've been able to draw up plans as advanced as these work it out how prepared they are to follow through with it."

Dukat found himself uncharacteristically out of words at the news he had just received. As he regained a little of his composure he said "Turkino you have to speak to them make them see sense, as much as one can make that lot see sense! Our reputation as a species will never recover if this is allowed to proceed. You must tell them that despite the difficulties we face a Cardassian does not just up and run in the face of adversity. Our collective morale is at stake here. They cannot continue with this plan. It; it .. absolutely cannot happen."

Turkino's image looked a little shocked on the viewscreen, it was not often that one saw Gul Dukat lose his carefully cultivated composure like this. Dukat hadn't been able to suppress the exasperation and shocked outrage in his voice and it wasn't a facet of his temperament that had been seen by his friend before, however understandable it might have been under the circumstances. "I wish I could old friend. They are adamant that those worlds are all but untenable, that Cardassia must tighten defences around a new and smaller rump empire if she is to survive. So much for me being a military adviser to these people! They never listen to a word I say." Dukat tried to shake out the despondency he heard inb his friends voice. He'd hate to think the governments defeatism was now starting to infect Turkino as well.

Dukat spat "If they think that by shrinking our borders and running that we can buy off our safety, they're in for a shock. It will just embolden the Klingons to make further attacks into our territory. To make increasingly more outrageous claims on our lands! A first year cadet could tell these idiots that giving into an aggressor just makes them bolder. Fools to a man all of them! They aren't fit to run a bath let alone what was the greatest empire in the Alpha Quadrant, no thanks to them!"

Turkino let out a mirthless laugh tinged with wry bitterness, he said "Do you actually know that the Federations ambassador came to visit me personally after he got wind of these plans. He wanted to verify that the council was serious as he found it hard to believe that such a capitulation could even be proposed. That tells you how far we have fallen when even the Federation peaceniks think you've gone too far." Anyway, enough of all this bad news. The mission, can you be in El-Gatark in twenty hours? Get in scan them and report back my friend. I know you can do it. It's good to know that there are Cardassians out there who still have what it takes. Perhaps there is hope for us all yet." Dukat was quick with his response though his unspoken inner feelings belied the superficial certainty of what he was about to say "Of course there is Turkino! Our people have faced worse in our history you know Cardassian spirit may have taken a beating but I am sure it is not permanently broken! All we have lost we will regain. It is just a matter of time and seizing the opportunities that present themselves. The martial spirit just needs rekindling again and I'll see to that for our people."

Turkino nodded in appreciation, he may have found the sentiments a bit on the ambitious side for Dukats part, but he appreciated them none the less and with that he terminated the link leaving the screen blank save for the backlit Klingon trefoil emblem. "All we have lost we will regain" It was noble words Dukat thought, but words was all it was at the moment. He just wished he had a concrete way of making good on his promise. He sighed and patched through to Kendro to change course to El-Gatark 6c, which the Dalin did dutifully, if a little confused sounding at this strange request from his Gul. A Gul was a Gul after all, and his orders were not questioned if a subordinate knew what was good for him. It was time to acquaint themselves with this Klingon flagship.


	3. The Gespagh

**3. The Gespagh.**

EL GATARK 6 loomed large on the viewscreen, it was a large gas giant though not as large as the biggest giant planet in the Cardassia system. It was a world that was braided with cloud bands from pole to pole, the turbulent storm fronts were ribbons of cream gold and mauve clouds of toxic gasses that made up the chemical composition of that layer of the planet. The storms were extremely violent and never settled due to the heat from the compressed interior of the huge planet and the fact there was no solid surface to break the storm fronts up. Some of those vast roiling hypercanes in the cloud bands had been active for hundreds of years. Although they were still thousands of A.U s away they were using the ships sensors for a visual reading of what was going on in the region, Dukat wanted precise manoeuvring into the campaign theatre so they could sneak in and perform the recon and sneak out just as quickly as they came without being seen. Time was of the essence and if they did this right, they would be on schedule to destroy the freighters in Amleth as well. It would provide the crew with a much vaunted double victory to their belts.

Dukat had formulated his plan to approach the Gespagh and gave orders accordingly "When we drop to impulse around El-Gatark 6 on my mark, I want to place us in the planets ring system. Position us on the outer circumference of the rings concurrent with the orbital position of 6c so we have a direct view of that world. The Gespaghs passive sensors will be programmed to filter out all the debris in the rings as unnecessary artefact. We should, in theory be able to slip through the net on their monitors as we drop out of warp; nothing more than another lump of rock and ice to anyone who may be casting a half glance in that direction. We can then make a vectored approach to 6c using thrusters to avoid detections as we leave the rings where we can go in for a closer look. Are you able to carry that out for me Dalin Kendro?"

The Dalin nodded and began making the necessary calculations on his console to carry the manoeuvre off. The image on the screen was now replaced by the real time image of streaking bands of starlight hurtling towards them and to the sides, the typical front view of a ship at warp. Dukat ordered they drop to impulse and the streaking dissipated as the ship dropped to sublight. The giant was not visible on the screen as the ship had its back turned towards the planet itself, but the tenuous dark band that made up the ring was hurtling towards them at high speed. Kendro used the retros to slow the ship to a halt and 6c was visible on the display, a small icy dot a little under a million kilometres distant from their position. The view was interspersed with the glistening black lumps of dirty ice coated with carbonaceous residue, the rings were so tenuous that the lumps rarely collided and were allowed to build up this coating so they were not the glistening hunks of ice that were kept fresh by smashing in to each other that you found in substantial ring systems like Chintoka 7 or Saturn in the Terran system.

"Damar, use your sensors to locate the Gespagh and put the ship on visual for me please." Damar immediately responded "Locating her for us now Gul. Found her sir she's orbiting the far side on the eastern limb of the moon, she's coming out of eclipse to us now sir , I'll put the visual up now." The image jumped from that tiny globe to the acid green battle cruiser that was in orbit of the moon, whose image now took up the entire left half of the viewscreen. The ship hadn't made any sudden alterations to its orbital flight plan as they snuck towards it and it hadn't appeared to make any preparations to activate any of its vast array of weapons and shields either. Dukat voiced what they all suspected "The ship doesn't appear to have reacted to our presence gentlemen. I do believe that this is the universal sign that she isn't aware we are here." Damar nodded "Concurred sir! We waltzed straight in and they haven't even noticed. They really are a useless people these Klingons. They don't deserve to possess such a fine piece of hardware as that ship."

Dukat agreed with Damars assessment of the physical impressiveness of the ship. The vessel was of the standard Klingon configuration with the cowelled head shaped primary hull at the front of the vessel which was attached by a thinner "neck" to the secondary hull which stretched out to the sides in a bevelled T shape, all the way to the nacelles on each side which were attached to the secondary hull. It was testament to the designers that they had built an elegant and stylish looking ship despite it being heavyset and packed to the brim with weapons and hardware. By all rights the vessel should have looked utilitarian and unwieldy but this ship was neither. As par the course of Klingon cultural traditions, the ship was a blend of physical designs drawn from their extensive martial history combined with the latest sophisticated military hardware. Dukat knew that it was often the case that the Klingons engineered their vessels to look incredibly menacing, often far beyond their actual combat capabilities. Indeed, this bird of prey Dukat knew, was far less well armed than Captain Sisko's Defiant even though at first glance the bird of prey looked more intimidating to the untrained eye. But the ship in front of him had the bite to match its bark, the Negh'Var class were flying fortresses, one of the huge plasma torpedoes housed in that cowelled head could slice an unshielded Galor warship with 100 percent hull integrity in half if fired with a high enough degree of accuracy.

One of the cargo bay doors amidships on the ventral hull started to open and two small cylindrical objects about ten meters long each were jettisoned out the cargo bay. They began a controlled descent to the moons surface each flying in an opposite trajectory from each other so that they descended in perfect parabolic formation to each other, settling through the airless journey to land in perfect synchrony, courtesy of the small red glow at the bases of the cylinders which were the impulse engines that guided them. Dukat knew that these tubes were the so called "Stingers" which had caused the Cardassian forces so much grief. The stinger was essentially a mobile surface to air missile which consisted of a mobile silo of which they had just seen being deployed with an impulse engine that meant they could be deployed anywhere on a planets surface and were able to fly from place to place on a planet for optimum range, depending on where they were needed. The weapon itself was a guided EMP pulse from an extremely powerful pumped flux compression generator that was fuelled by the silo being able to mine the requisite minerals on the planet that the device was placed on which could be converted by the silos special replicator to create the flux; the materials and the power for the generator. The flux was contained in a targeting system and they were extremely accurate and effective and could easily knock out a ships electrical system for hours even days as well as flux compression being able to inflict severe physical damage to a vessel. The Klingons had used them to fortify positions in the territory they had annexed in the union, but this was the offensive version that was being used against merchant shipping and warships. By strategically deploying them on moons such as El Gatark 6c it meant that the Klingons could shoot down merchant shipping and even warships which strayed close to these hard to spot until it was too late - devices which had scaled down cloaks which concealed them from the sensors of the unaware to a deadly degree. Was the Gespah seeding the worlds on the front to such a degree that Cardassian shipping just wouldn't be able to traverse it on pain of being shot down?

The Gespah's hull profile was now fully in view on the side of the moon facing where the cloaked Neprem lay in wait, Dukat gave the signal to engage the thrusters so that they could fly in to have a closer look. He was even toying about beaming up one of the silos for inspection whilst they were in close but perhaps that was too risky, and their cover would be blown by the orbiting command ship, a fight they would surely lose very quickly. "Kendro, take us on a course that doesn't pass directly through the strongest regions of the planets main radiation belts, stealth is of the essence for this mission."

Dukat knew that others were prone to overconfidence in the supposed total stealth that the cloak provided but not him, especially with a Klingon designed one; they were not on a par with their Romulan counterparts. They had discovered from on the fly learning on their prize, that radiation was known to interfere with the cloaking field more than Klingon engineers had wanted to let on about. Damar suddenly spoke and Dukat knew from a Guls instinctive ability to read the body language and voices of the men who served under him that he was alarmed but trying to hide it a little. "Gul Dukat! Energy pulse has been launched from the surface of the moon, from the trajectory and nature of the flux that is the source of the pulse I am almost certain a stinger has been deployed." Dukat instantly responded "Go to red alert and bring it on the view screen! At what is that energy source targeted at? Us?"

Damar didn't have to respond as the pulse was travelling at a phenomenal rate, it struck the Gespagh in precisely the same location; the ventral cargo bay - that it had been launched from. Dukat watched as the Gespagh spasmodically shook from the impact, its superstructure vibrating like a chime being hit by a hammer, Dukat imagined he could hear the hull groaning and clanging from the stresses it was under, but no sound was to be heard in the vacuum of space. There was little in the way of explosions or flame, but the ship was writhed in snaking electrical discharges as the power breakers and electrical substations on the ship shorted out and overloaded, the lights inside the ship flickering out due to loss of power. Escape pods and other probes and torpedoes were being involuntarily jettisoned as the clamps and relays that held them in their housings also failed, Perhaps some of the crew had deliberately jumped ship as the life support would surely be failing also.

The ship suddenly lurched about 35 degrees to the right and began to list over on the side it had turned over so sharply on, colliding violently with some of the flotsam that had been unwittingly launched. Dukat saw how glistening flakes of green mylar the exact same colour as the ships hull were spewing out of the ventral part of the ship that had been hit, and that the twinkling chips of hull fragment glistening in the sun were floating in a thin grey aerosol of leaking freezing air that was escaping from the massive gash created by the impact, and was now on conspicuous display as the ship had listed over enough to give them a direct view of its war wound. The roof of the cargo bay and the interior of the surrounding rooms destroyed in the impact could be seen through the gash; the deck levels visible where the blast had sliced bulkheads and decking clean in half.

A few seconds later a large smoking module was explosively ejected from the rear of the ship, an ejection that was designed to propel that incandescent piece of hardware as far away as possible from the ship it had been launched from. That smoking ruin was the ships warp core that was on the verge of losing magnetic containment in the wake of the EMP, it's destruction was inevitable. The Gespagh was also venting the remaining plasma left in the nacelles into space, the magnetic containment fields must be failing there too. They were preventing the seeringly hot plasma from leaking out and destroying the warp coils, as well as flooding the ship with leaking plasma - to render the ship irreparable, an ejected warp core could be replaced relatively easy. Melted warp coils on the other hand, would mean the engines would have to be rebuilt completely. They all watched transfixed on the viewscreen as the once mighty wounded war animal now listed helplessly as it bore the brunt of the injuries it had sustained.

Dukat looked over to the chief engineer Braktor without tasking his eyes off of what he had seen. If what he suspected was true, the biggest victory of their mission so far was staring them in the face. Braktor spoke "It appears the Stinger was deployed by accident. I would think it most likely that the devices friend or foe system was malfunctioning, although I couldn't rule out computer malfunction or operator error, though the first seems most likely. It wouldn't be the first time a prototype Klingon battlefield weapon proved just as dangerous to the assailant as it was to the intended victim. The KDF will have been cutting corners with safety in order to deploy their new toys a soon as possible on the field again."

Dukat was intrigued "Hoisted by a petard of their own making were they? Well we shall have pay for the short sighted error of their ways." Dukat turned to Damar who was grinning savagely as he studied his consoles, he too was thinking what Dukat was thinking in regards to the stricken command ship. "Damar? What is the operational status of that ship? I suspect it was less of a sting, than the kiss of death for them. Do put me out of my curiosity please!" Damar responded instantly as he couldn't keep the good news in any longer. "The ship has as good as no operational capability at all sir! She's totally helpless, completely at our mercy. We can move in at our leisure and there is nothing she can do about it!"

It was unfortunate for the crew of that ship Dukat thought, as he wasn't inclined to cut the Klingons any mercy today. The truth was he was just as thrilled as Damar was at what fate had just handed them right there. Destroying a command ship would seriously set back the Klingon invasion and might even stretch their lines to almost breaking point. As well as be a massive dent in the Klingon fleets morale. Counter to this, was the effect it would have on his own people. News that a rogue officer in a single bird of prey destroyed such a massive ship would create enormous ripples of support amongst his people for Dukats cause. If Dukat was able to light the way back to his peoples former greatness by destroying that ship, would the civilian government have no choice in the wake of such an upwelling of support for Cardassian supremacy - but to abandon their disgraceful plans for utter capitulation for fear of being overthrown by popular rebellion to their shameful stance. Surely it must have crossed their minds that they could be toppled just as easily as they had toppled military rule?

Ever the seasoned military tactician Dukat had already mentally drawn out a plan of attack to bring their prey down "We should waste no time then. We will fly in to within five kilometres of the Gespagh, approaching on the ships damaged underside,where we will strafe the area of exposed hull where the rupture is and aim for the weapons and fuel tanks on the underside as the warp core is no longer a target. This should be the quickest method of inflicting enough damage so that the superstructure will give way, I predict the attack should no longer than a few minutes at most."

Damar still had that savage glint in his eyes, he had smelled his prey and was desperate to strike the killer blow. He snorted harshly "Hah! Imagine the crews expressions when they see us flying in, they may even think we are there to rescue them! They literally have no idea that we would be there to seal their fate!" Dukat was pleased that Damar had made the mental link to the particularly Cardassian irony of the Gespagh's fate at the hands of a Klingon ship, because it certainly hadn't escaped Dukats attention. It gave Dukat enormous satisfaction to know that the last thing that crew would see would be a bird of prey - seemingly there as eleventh hour salvation, only to discover that the ship was there to finish them off. That they would go to their deaths knowing that that last bit of false hope had been so cruelly stripped away from them. Dukat had always thought an enemy should end their existence knowing that their last breaths were down to them being entirely in the wrong in opposing you in the first place, and as that ship collapsed around them in flame and molten metal, the Gespaghs crew would finally realise how utterly misguided their audacity in thinking they could annex sovereign Cardassian and get away with unscathed actually was.

Braktor spoke up as he studied his console. "Warp core breach in progress on that jettisoned drive sir. We should be far enough away to ride it out without harm." just as the engineer had said; a new star appeared to come into being right there on the view screen, the explosion from that stricken warp core. The light as powerful as it was from a relatively long distance, was tantamount to the power a warp drive had bottled up in its core. Dukat watched as the shock wave visibly spread in an expanding sphere from the source of the explosion, and as the wave passed through their bird of prey. Dukat most likely imagined it but did he not feel the residual turbulence from the wave as it encountered the Neprem?

The moon was growing larger on the view screen and the Gespagh was visible as a small green dot in a ragged orbit of the moon, though its direction was changing. Kendro said "They're manually firing their thrusters sir! Trying to establish as stable an elliptical orbit as they can. Like a comet sir, comes in for a close pass on one hemisphere and orbits a lot further out on the other side." They were so close in now that topography of the moon was clearly visible, the mountain ranges of rock and ices flanked the limbs of the sphere, and orbiting in the foreground was the Gespagh, now so close that its physical profile could be resolved with the unaided eye. Damar announced that the Gespagh had managed to launch a functioning probe which was being used to broadcast a patchy distress call, and a request for a replacement warp core and a fleet servicing tender. Dukat was not fazed by this news "Let them send all the distress calls they want. There will be nothing for the tender to service except a gas cloud. We'll be long gone by the time they arrive."

Kendro as ordered was bringing the Neprem in on an attack vector that had them heading for the damaged underside of the ship which could be seen as the ship ducked under its prey. The damage from this distance looked like an ugly black scar etched on the ships belly. Dukat was working out some mental calculations for the primary firing solution when the ship was suddenly struck by a monstrous thud which knocked it clean out of its flight vector like a fly being swatted. Dukat, knocked for six, suddenly realised that his bridge was now tilted ninety degrees off of the orientation it had been a second ago. Through the sheer unexpected surprise at what had just happened it suddenly dawned on him that it wasn't the bridge that was affected, he had fallen out of his chair by the impact. The second loud thud he heard was his body hitting the hard metallic floor. His vision was blurred and he tasted blood in his mouth, but Dukat didn't think he'd broken anything. He watched as Damar went flying from his console towards one of the pillar shaped bridge supports, his soldiers reflex meant that his hands took the brunt of the blow that by all rights should have been met by his skull.

Dukat lifted himself up and dazed by vertigo he managed to seat himself in the captains chair. "What the hell just happened then?" Damar raced to the helm console as all the consoles and lighting on the bridge began to flicker, the displays on the consoles were all being corrupted by pixel artefact as the images were broken up by lines and blocks, a sure sign of multiple system failure. Damar had to move Kendro who was slumped in the helmsmens chair seemingly unconscious. It was only the unnatural way his head was twisted three quarters of the way around at the neck that Dukat realised that his officer had been killed when his neck had been broken by the impact. Damar gave his assessment from what little functioning equipment he could utilise, and it wasn't good "We've been hit by the stinger as well sir! Not as powerful as the one that took out the Gespagh, a residual shot possibly. We were hit on the port wing sir, not on the hull too, for what little benefit that has for us! Hypergolic fuel pumps and the avionics systems located in the wings badly hit sir! I'd say over 80 percent of our systems are off line! We're descending onto 6c sir I'm attempting a manual landing firing the thrusters myself as the primary avionics package is fried."

Damars fingers flew over the console as he tried to steady the plummeting starship. Flying a bucket like a bird of prey without the fly by wire systems was a testing feat to say the least. It also didn't help that parts of the instrument panel were now only functioning intermittently due to the ravages of the EMP. Damar had his work cut out and he was visibly perspiring as he wrestled with Klingon hardware that stubbornly refused to yield. Dukat saw that they were skirting the tops of some of the higher mountain peaks, even though they were only a few thousand meters up from the planetoids surface; the curvature of this world clearly visible, highlighting the small radius of this world, smaller than Cardassias own moon. Dukat turned away from the view when he heard Damar shout "Hold on this is going to be a bumpy landing sir! Brace for impact in three.. two...one..." Damar was desperately firing the retro rockets to slow the impact as much as he could, and steam was seen from the front viewscreen as the rockets melted the surface ice and there was a dull crack as the bottom of the ships aft section made contact with the surface just below the main impulse engine.

As if they had been struck by a large hammer, the entire superstructure of the Neprem shuddered and rang with sonorous groanings and Dukat heard the creaking sound of something crumpling and giving way, whether the ships hull or the rilled surface of the moon he did not know. The hull was thumping with loud bangs as the surviving structural integrity field generators attempted top go to work in damage limiting the stresses the hull was undergoing. The ship was then brutally struck from the side and nearly toppled as the port wing had obviously slammed into a surface feature. The impact spun the ship nearly 180 degrees from its original trajectory and Dukat heard metal crashing and grinding together, he knew that this was the shredding and grinding of where the wing was mounted to the hull as the wing was caught on whatever obstacle was pushing onto it as it tried to free itself. The damage sounded horrendous, and Dukat hated to think about what sort of damage was being done to the ship to produce such an ear-splitting noise. The impact however had one unexpected bonus as it had stopped the ship dead in its track, the momentum stalled by the impact. They had landed, but the question remained, were they in any position to ever take off again?


	4. Dead In the Water

**4. Dead in the Water.**

BRAKTOR was stood over a large fiche schematic of the Neprem in the engineering room, they would have used the master operational display in the engineering room if it were not for the fact that it wasn't currently working due to the devastating effects of the EMP that had shot them down. Braktor was forced to resort to circling the damaged areas of the ship with a flourescent marker. Things were grim for the Neprem, Braktor had speculated that the residual shockwave from the warp core breach may have disrupted the cloak enough to allow the malfunctioning stingers sensors to have targeted the Neprem as a hostile blip even though she was supposedly invisible at the time . Braktor was relatively unskilled at managing his facial expressions for a Cardassian and Dukat could see that he wasn't going to like what his chief engineer had to say. Not at all.

Dukat decided to defuse the tension by cutting straight to the chase. "Right Braktor, how long before we can be underway again? Are our CPU systems able to be restored to full working order after the EMP, or are we looking at large scale system failure. Braktor responded glumly. "The computers systems suffered less damage than we thought. Damar was right to surmise that a residual hit struck out port wing, so the primary CPU housings didn't take the brunt of it, and we should be able to restore over 90 percent of computer functionality by rebooting with the back ups, likewise for the avionic systems. I believe we need two to three hours to restore computer control." Braktor seemed remarkable downbeat for this seemingly surprising stroke of good luck, Dukat was getting a little impatient with him, a Gul shouldn't have to wait for his subordinate to volunteer information, especially out here on the move. He let his irritation be known "Braktor! Could you be as so kind to give your Gul a complete breakdown of this ships operational status? The demands on my carefully rationed time are quite pressing, I shouldn't have to wring it out of you, understood?"

Braktor looked like he'd been stingered himself at the rebuke, but he continued. "Sorry Gul Dukat, I forget my place. We were fortunate with the computers, the warp drive I regret to say has fared a lot less so." This was not good news to say the least. The warp drive was just so integral to interstellar flight that a badly damaged or destroyed unit really was the ultimate word in engineering bad news. "Braktor, we do have warp capability do we? We aren't stranded in El-Gatark with a wrecked warp drive." Braktors eyes closed ever so slightly and he gave his assessment of the drive "The slim good news is that the warp drive is still functioning, though only just. The port wing was both damaged by the direct hit from the stinger and from striking a mountain as we crash landed. The wing has impacted not only into its mounting, but into the adjacent port nacelle also. It has punctured the warp coils and fractured them, and the entire nacelle will have to be removed in its entirety and replaced with new nacelles for full warp capability."

Dukat knew that this repair job would mean a major overhaul at a starbases dry dock. They couldn't rely on cadging a few spare parts and a free once over from a sympathetic yard superintendent as they had done for other minor damage they had occurred on their campaign. He held out on at least a flicker of hope and responded to Braktor. "What about the starboard nacelle? That still functions does it not. How would we manage just relying on that one for the short term until we are in a position to make substantial repairs? "We can maintain warp speed on the one nacelle, but there are serious limitations due to the nature of the damage we have taken. When the warp coils in the damaged nacelle were ruptured, the emergency systems redirected the plasma flow to the starboard one as designed too. However as some of the hypergolics in the wing were damaged by the EMP, so the redirected plasma flow to the other warp engine was irregular. The overheated plasma has degraded the integrity of our remaining warp coils and I believe we would not be able to push the craft past warp 2 without doing irreparable damage to the weakened coils." Dukat took in the enormity of what he'd been told "So you're telling me we now don't have the warp abilities to overtake a two hundred year old Tellarite ore freighter let alone a Klingon warship?" "Yessir. As much as I hate to say it there are other problems too. We now have to use the warp field from one nacelle to surround the entire ship, not a symmetrical field from two; this will increase the demands on our energy reserves about three hundred percent at warp. It's those wings sir, the warp bubble finds it hard enough to encompass them when both are active, with only one up and running the stresses on forming a stable warp field are magnified considerably. This ship may be aesthetically pleasing but it does produce practical problems especially when not at full operational status."

It was Damars turn to speak now. "Can we not just jettison the damaged wing?" Braktor replied instantly, "No sir, we would need a starbases class five plasma arc cutters to physically remove it and reconstruct the surrounding hull that would have to be extracted as well, as it that heavily embedded into the hull. We attempt to pull it out with the onboard equipment we risk splaying the aft hull so badly it will break apart at the seams." Braktor certainly knew how to make them all feel better with his analysis of their plight.

Dukat added his own assessment "We could just shear the wing off at the point where it meets the external wing mounting I suppose, but we would have the double problem of being stuck at only being able to fly at warp 2, and that we would be instantly recognisable as a rogue one winged bird of prey. Ok men begin work to restore computer control as we make preparations on how will proceed in light of this setback." _"Setback"_, that was putting it mildly to say the least. He knew that they were in dire straits mission wise with the damage they had inflicted. Braktor was right; the ship would need extensive work at at one of their major shipyards, assuming that even those shipyards could provide anything like the compatible parts for this alien ship to run at full capacity again. He wasn't sure that in this climate of capitulation, that the government would order a starbase commander to seize the ship as it limped into dock; a threat to their long peace. Anyway even a ship yard that could service the ship, and that had personnel Dukat knew were sympathisers to his cause was months away at warp two. Attempting to cannibalise parts at a junkyard like Qualor 2 or Menaal was all but impossible, both were over a hundred light years away, which may as well have been the other side of the galaxy due to the state the Neprem was in.

Dukat felt physically drained, one minute they had been on the cusp of their greatest victory and a second later it was all snatched from them by the capriciousness of a Klingon contraption with shoddy parts. Dukat headed for his ready room, he would have to make arrangements for someone else to seal the still stricken and defenceless Gespagh's fate – it was like being the captain of the Groumell all over again, denied the chance to personally destroy ones enemy – the bloodlust was there, the technological means to do so less so. It brought bitter memories back that made him wince internally. That he had been so humiliated by the Klingons in front of Major Kira of all people. He'd burned with angry indignation then and he did so now. Though they had managed to beat the odds and gain victory that time around, Dukat wasn't sure that fortune would favour him so generously this time. It seemed his mission to take war to the Klingons was over. Permanantly.


	5. A Change of Plan

**5. A Change of Plan.**

DUKAT had been waiting two hours for repairs to the ships comm system so that it was in a workable enough state to be able send a long range message to Legate Turkino, and it still looked like he was going to be kept waiting a while longer. The same symbol indicating that a long range transmission was impossible at this time came up as it had done in the half dozen times he'd tried before. Dukat slammed his fist on the desk in frustration, the comm system like the ship, no the whole damned universe was yet again conspiring against him on this day where nothing worked as it was supposed to and all plans great or small were thwarted right there in front of him. Dukat's only crumb of comfort was that the Gespagh was in far worse condition than they were. It remained incapacitated, still in its unchanging elliptical orbit with no signs of it having fixed any of its systems for it to do anything else.

Despite their enemies stricken condition, Dukat was keen for the Neprem to blast off this rock, the Gespagh had almost certainly seen them crash and with support ships coming to its aid the Neprem would be easy pickings for those barbarians. Damar had reported that passive scans had shown that the Gespagh had sent another transmission through its functioning probe. They didn't know the exact content of the message as the sensors were unable to pick up more than mere fragments due to their current condition, but it was almost certainly a message to the support ships that they had seen a bird of prey crash land due to being shot down by the stinger. Dukat wouldn't be surprised if the Captain of the Gespagh took the credit himself for downing that rogue bird of prey they'd heard about. Klingon captains were frequently known to elaborate on their victories often at the expense of what actually happened in reality.

He was about to chastise Damar for his tardiness in fixing the comm system when he realised that the hated symbol that said he couldn't send a message had vanished from the display. Dukat eagerly fired up the comm and the image was replaced by a slightly below normal resolution image of Turkino, who appeared to be in the prefects private ready room on the chief military advisors personal battle yacht rather than his offices on Cardassia. Perhaps it was a good sign if the chief military advisor was actually advising on a warship near the front? Turkino had expected a call from Dukat but looked a little confused by what was going on such was the poor quality broadcast his friend now presented him with. "Dukat is everything alright in El-Gatark? My ships long range sensors appear to show that the Gespagh is just sitting there in orbit with virtually no power readings? We aren't picking up any activity from her, have you managed to incapacitate her somehow?"

Dukat nodded at the question and replied "No sir, I wish it was so, but reluctantly I must give credit where credit is due. Those fools on the Gespagh managed to disable their own ship courtesy of their own weapons. She was planting those stingers after all, and they ended up being stung the hardest. Unfortunately they were not its sole victim." Turkino frowned at the news putting two and two together and realised that Dukat had been disabled by the wretched things as well. Dukat regaled him with what had happened to them and he listened intently if glumly at their plight. "You don't believe that you can reach even minimal combat ability on just field repairs alone?" he asked,. "No sir! I believe in our present condition our guerilla campaign against the Klingons is unsustainable. I don't know how to break it to the crew. To think that we won't have a chance to avenge the death of my helmsmen at the hands of those lot. Sickening!"

Dukats tone was venomous, but he couldn't direct that venom at his intended target. He'd been essentially defanged; a prisoner of his own misfortune, stuck on this rusty non functioning tub. Turkino spoke, breaking the silence that had descended as a result of Dukats black mood at his situation "Damn you've taken casualties. I'll have inform Dalin Kendros parents of the bad news. Such a tragic loss for one at the start of his military career." Dukat saw this as the perfect time to pitch his superior his idea of sending warships to finish off the Gespagh. If he couldn't do it, he'd just have to settle for second best "Legate, the Gespagh is still helpless with reinforcements not due for at least thirty hours. With all due respect sir, we should seize the moment to end the threat and avenge my helmsmen death. Surely we can spare just one Galor warship to redress at least some of the wounds our empire has taken."

Dukat saw that Turkino uncharacteristically seemed to be finding it hard to meet Dukats gaze in response to his request. He had a feeling his day was suddenly going to get even worse than it already had been. Turkinos voice was barely above a whisper and was terse to the point of him sounding a little raspy "I cannot grant your request Dukat. The government feels we are not able to spare a warship that would have to be diverted from undertaking higher priority missions for the empire." Dukat was stunned at what he had just heard. What could possibly be more "high priority" than defending the empire from such an obvious target that was sitting there? "I... I don't understand. A Klingon command ship is lying there helpless..."

Turkino explained his astonishing response to his stunned friend some more "These stinger attacks are severely disrupting merchant shipping around our colony worlds in the regions they have been deployed. Trade and transport of commerce and supplies have virtually all but seized up in some regions. We have had to respond by sending warships to ferry essentials to colonies that have literally seen their supplies reduced to nothing as a result. It was all we could do to prevent the colonists from perishing en masse. ""You cannot be serious Turkino. Is it really that bad for our people on those worlds." said Dukat who was having trouble taking in the dire state of those stricken colonists.

"It's true I'm afraid. Gul Mintare of the warship Kontrall told me that on Remlath 4 the colonists were reduced to stripping and eating the bark off the trees and even fibres from their livestock's manure. Mintare told me that he believed if he had arrived even a few days later the colonists may have resorted to cannibalism to stave off the rampant starvation on that world." If what Mintare had reported was accurate, and Dukat had no reason to think that Mintare was a liar because he knew he wasn't - it was like tales from the darkest days of starvation and disease on Cardassia prior to the military ascendency. Turkino smiled sadly "I bet you never thought you'd see the day when one of the finest military forces in the Alpha quadrant would be reduced to running freight as we seemingly don't have the infrastructure to even feed our own people anymore. I hate to say it, but we really could have used those dozen industrial replicators that the Federation offered us as a "gift" last month, but they were stolen by the Maquis at Deep Space Nine before we received them. Some say that the Federation deliberately engineered the theft as a clandestine plot to covertly aid the Maquis by delivering them into their hands, whilst simultaneously undermining our people by increasing the strength and resources of our enemies. A deliberate attempt to undermine the morale of our leadership by knowing that salvation had been so cruelly taken from the empire in such a manner."

Dukat had not known about this offer of "aid" from the Federation, but he didn't believe the conspiracy theory of the theft being a deliberate plot though. The Federation had their own troubles with the Maquis without wanting to make them stronger, and obtaining twelve of those massive replicators was no easy task to say the least. One did not just let such an immense tonnage of hardware go "missing" like that. Dukat shot back with what he thought may persuade Turkino to send a ship without seriously disrupting the aid efforts "El-Gatark is located on the merchant shipping lanes Legate. I understand we need to assist the colonists but diverting one ship to destroy the Gespagh is not a big ask. A command ship in our borders is never good news and is as big a threat to our people as food shortages. We would be fools not to seize the opportunity to strike."

Turkino shook his head. "No Dukat, you don't understand. There will be no strike on that ship. The government have been made aware of developments, and the ship is not to be destroyed. They are looking at other alternatives of dealing with the ship." Dukat was incensed at this. That ship was a menace to his empire and its weapons had been responsible for murdering many of its citizens. It was now helpless and in a prime position to be dealt with, permanently. "There are no alternatives we need to think of Legate! Destroy it now and the Gespagh problem is gone forever! Bang!" Dukat shouted. It was not appropriate to address ones superior in this manner Dukat knew, but he couldn't help it. It was like some capricious act of providence had affected a divine will whereupon the entire universe had gone completely crazy.

Turkino didn't take his subordinate to task as Dukats anger was understandable, and he explained why they were pursuing this option. "The Detapa council believes that destroying the ship would result in horrific reprisals directed towards the colonists on the front lines, casualties that they see as an unnecessary waste of life as the colonies are just going to be evacuated and the colonists uprooted anyway. The government intends to hold the ship and crew hostage instead and use them as a bargaining chip to either secure a halt on attacks, or for the Klingons to make territorial concessions in exchange for the return of the ship and its crew." Dukat was beyond contempt for the architects of these ludicrous plans. Did these idiots really think that they could buy peace for Cardassia by asking the Klingons nicely could we please have our empire back and we'll be nice to your crew and give you your ship back if you do. If they thought that would work they were even stupider than he had thought they were.

Like a lone bolt of lightning in the night sky Dukat realised he had just discovered the root of why they were behaving in a manner that seemed at first glance like terminal madness "They are scared of the Klingons aren't they Legate? That is the emotional crux of their logic in dealing with them isn't it? They are acting out of fear and they don't think that our people can repel the aggressor. No he must be "negotiated" with because we can't fight back against him. Because, because; they are afraid of him and they see defeat as the only, inevitable outcome. Game over for us so to speak. If we have allowed ourselves to be governed by such people perhaps we don't deserve to survive as an empire! Everything I set out to achieve has been rendered to nothing."

Dukat had never felt so deflated in his life. Perhaps the damage to the Neprem had been a blessing in disguise. It was obvious that even if he was to take up the one ship war again, it would all be totally in vain. He could destroy half the Klingon fleet and they'd still want to go on bended knee to the conquerors. It was clear to him that the rot was just set in too deep and too far now.

Turkino spoke once more to a dejected looking Gul Dukat. "Your ship is able to take off again is it not?" Gul Dukat nodded that it was "Good. I'm en route to El-Gatark now. Can you make it to these coordinates in the outer Kuiper belt, where we can meet in secret." Dukat looked at the co-ordinates and it was manageable, even accounting for the dire state of the warp drive as the co-ordinates he'd been given were still in the El-Gatark system; albeit a considerable distance out from the central star itself. He acknowledged that they could get there on their own steam "Good" said Turkino. "The meeting is covert and no-one in the government knows about this meeting, that is why I have only brought it up just at the last minute. When you hear what I, we have to say, you'll understand why."

Dukat was intrigued at all this. "What does this have to do with me." Turkino smiled "Your depressing assessment of the state of the empire is accurate, but there are always other options if you care to look for them. A more "radical" approach to righting our woes so to speak" Dukat noted how Turkino emphasised on the options part of his statement. Presumably it was these options he wanted to discuss in person with him. Dukat reckoned these "options" were the sort that the spineless civilian government wouldn't like too much. Turkino said "I want you there as I need a fellow patriot to assess these options with me, collaborate with me. Besides there is someone I want you to meet, he is; after all, certainly very keen to meet you. See you at the coordinates in ten hours then. Turkino out." Dukat had lots of questions but would not receive any more answers as Turkino had abruptly terminated the link. Who was so keen to meet him anyway? He supposed he'd find out soon enough. He ordered them to set course for the coordinates they were given when the ship was stabilised enough for take off and intrastellar flight, and they went on their journey as their mission to revitalise the Cardassian people took on yet another unexpected twist.


	6. A Visitor

**6. A Visitor.**

DESPITE the ill luck bestowed upon her, the Neprems journey to the given coordinates was an uneventful one. They had now taken up orbit around a fifteen kilometer long hunk of frozen volatiles and rock; just one of many such chunks of debris that formed this systems Kuiper belt. El Gatark itself at this distance out appeared more of a bright starlike point of light, than the immense and fiery heart of the system that it truly was. Dukat and Damar found themselves alone in the ships mess hall where they would personally meet their "guest" along with Turkino. Turkino had ordered Dukat to clear not just the mess hall itself; of all other personnel, but the entire deck the mess hall was located on. In addition he had ordered that the rooms immediately adjacent on the decks above and below should be cleared of personal too, with all surveillance equipment in these areas to be switched off. Whoever it was that was arriving, Turkino appeared to want to make perfectly sure that the meeting was to be kept as complete a secret as was physically possible. "Who has he brought with him?" Dukat thought "The head of the Orion Syndicate?" Dukat mentally chastised himself for pointlessly speculating who it might be, they'd be enlightened enough in a few minutes time. Turkino had allowed a concession for Cardassian sensibilities in requesting Damars presence. His people always found strength and boldness in being in groups, Cardassian temperament tended towards the more pensive and cautious alone. Turkino seemed keen to put the Cardasssians on somewhat of the upper hand over their guest.

They watched the outside view of the ship which was being patched through to the main display in the mess hall, a flash of light indicating a ship was dropping from warp to sub light blinked up on the screen and sure enough it was Turkinos yacht. Dukat hailed the transporter duty officer to beam the two lifeforms directly to the mess hall. The pair both stood up to attention, hands placed firmly to their sides which gave the effect of stretching and emphasising the profile of their neck ridges, as was traditional for formal military poise. They heard the hum of transporter as a splash of red particles from the Klingon transporter resolved themselves into two figures who had now fully materialised in front of them, one was Legate Turkino and the other was a smallish; unimpressive looking alien man of a species Dukat didn't recognise.

Turkino spoke first "Hello Gul Dukat old friend, it's so good to see you in person after such a long time. Though out here on the front lines I suppose that can't be helped. You and your first officer look well in spite of your recent setbacks, which sort of ties in to why I've asked you here." Turkino now gestured towards the strange and effete creature who was stood beside him. "This is who I brought you here to meet. Gul Dukat please meet Weyoun an "advisor" from the Gamma quadrant on the other side of the wormhole." Dukat was confused as to why Turkino had gone to all this trouble to introduce Dukat to this little pipsqeak. What could this impish creature possibly do to help restore Cardassias fortunes? He looked liked he belonged up a tree or something. He really was an odd fellow with his thick woolly crop of dark hair and his pallid milky pink skin tone which was reminiscent of the colour that the corpses of Bajoran labourers he had seen - went after a few days of death. The alien man was staring at Dukat in a curious; myopic manner, he tilted his head back and began to approach him, he carried himself in his movements with the same effete and portentous air that he radiated just by looking at him.

Dukat cast a glance at Damar who was glaring at the alien with distaste. It was clear he had taken a dislike to this Weyoun as soon as he clapped eyes on him. But the most distinguishing thing about Weyoun was his ears. They protruded sideways from the chin line and were shaped like riveted crescents at the side of his face which stretched from the chin line to the top of the crown just over eye level where the crescent gradually merged with the cranium. The earhole was visible in the middle of the crescents at the centre of the riveted cartilaginous folds in the inner part of the crescent. Dukat could not tell whether the ear linings met at the front of the skull or just attatched to the sides of the skull respectively as the contours were obscured by his hair, but either physiological feature may have been possible. Dukat noticed that Weyoun was continuing that intense myopic stare at him, cocking his head at an angle to focus those violet irises at him. It was then Dukat realised the reason for this idiosyncratic gesturing, it appeared that the alien suffered from bad eyesight and he was struggling to see Dukat's face in the gloomy mess hall and was trying to use the lighting to focus on him. Dukat even wondered if Weyoun may have been partially sighted and that the coloration in his eyes was sign of damage to them. Weyoun addressed Dukat, his voice was silky; effeminate even, and although he was quietly spoken, his gentle tone carried across an air of assertive confidence and ease in public speaking. He broke into a huge grin and cheerily said "Ah Gul Dukat! It's a pleasure to finally meet one of Cardassias most infamous sons. Your achievements and reputation precedes you sir! Even all the way to the Gamma quadrant."

Dukat was polite but guarded in his response "I'm touched to have made such an impression on your people. I hope my reputation proceeds in a way I would find favourable?" Weyoun laughed at this "It depends who you speak too, though I can hardly expect the Bajorans to be the most objective judge of your character but; for my part at least, I endeavour to take a more balanced view."

Dukat forced a smile, he didn't know if the alien was trying to be funny, but if he was he certainly hadn't seen he funny side. Dukat was touchy about how others perceived his role in the occupation. They hadn't been in his shoes, had the responsibilities that he had had back then. It was easy for them attack him retrospectively; ignorant of what Dukat had tried to achieve for the world that had once been under his stewardship. He didn't appreciate their sideline "opinions" one bit. Turkino had sensed Dukats discomfort and stepped in to stop the encounter accidentally veering off in a direction he hadn't intended it to go. He gestured for the four of them to take a seat at one of the mess hall tables and produced a bottle of kanar; a 2317 vintage from the legates personal collection if Dukat wasn't mistaken. Turkino was pulling out the stops here. He poured three glasses of kanar and handed them out to the the Cardassians, Weyoun declined a drink, it seemed he was satisfied with doing without. "Gul Dukat, I have invited Weyoun here as he may at least provide some of the solutions for the enormous problems the Union faces in the aftermath of the Klingon invasion. Forgive my candour my friend. It is certainly not my intention to belittle the sterling operations you have performed with this ship behind enemy lines, but I must be blunt here. The empires troubles run far far deeper than what can be resolved with one captured Klingon ship. If we do not take drastic action to change the downward trajectory our people seem to be on, or if we don't rapidly overhaul the current policies of the civillian government our empire will dissolve before our eyes. Cardassia is like a wounded body that has been knifed a hundred times and is spilling its blood all over the wayside, helplessly in front of its dying eyes. If the projections the senior military command and myself predict come to pass, in less than a decade we will be relegated to a minor power at best, or a strife torn backwater eclipsed by worlds such as Lissepia and as much as I hate to say it; Bajor as well."

Dukat felt a stab of anger towards his friend. Despite his claim that he didn't want to rubbish the sacrifices the crew of the Neprem had made, Dukat was annoyed that Turkino had redefined the hardship and sacrifices he and his crew had endured as nothing but some peripheral damage limitation exercise. He was also dismayed that Turkino would talk so openly about his people dire situation in front of an alien species they barely knew. It wasn't the Cardassian way to expose weakness that way. But Dukat also knew that he was angry because secretly he knew Turkinos assessment of his mission and the state of the empire was an essentially accurate one. Turkino leant in closer as if to shield what he was saying from imagined eavesdroppers "The simple fact is Cardassia will need help from outsiders to survive. We will need to forge new alliances and acquire new hardware to continue to be a player in the quadrant. I despise the fact we had to go cap in hand to the Federation for those industrial replicators, but if it did highlight one thing for me it is that we may have to look outside the Unions borders for our future survival and not just look for solutions from within."

Weyoun butted in at this point, he seemed rather animated. "Replicators that were suspiciously stolen by foul play amongst Starfleet personnel I might add. Seems to be rather a coincidence to me! This level of incompetence would never have been tolerated by my government! Does make one wonder if the rumours are true, and that the Federation did deliberately deny you them in order to demoralise you." Weyoun sniffed with indignation, for someone who lived on the other side of the galaxy he seemed to dislike the Federation intensely. How did he think the Cardassians felt? Dukat wondered. They actually had to live next to them. Turkino continued talking, his voice conspiratorial. "I have it on good word that we would not be able to obtain a new supply of replicators from the Federation. The Bajoran and pro-Maquis lobby wield significant influence in some parts of the council and the embarrassment of such a substantial amount of Federation hardware being stolen right under their noses has essentially put paid to that transaction happening again. The Romulans have too many problems of their own from the gutting of the Tal Shiar and the fleet of warbirds, to come to our aid. They are devoting their resources to rebuilding so they can fend off Klingon raids on their own territory. The minor powers could never realistically meet even a considerable minority of our full demands and needs. It is for these reasons that I have invited Weyoun, he is an important representative from the largest power in the Gamma quadrant, the Dominion."

Dukat suddenly stiffened and he actually thought he heard Damar gasp upon hearing that name. Although the two of them had no direct experience of this Dominion of Weyouns, they followed current affairs like everyone else. The Dominion was reputedly extremely powerful, with many times the number of ships and resources than any of the Alpha quadrant powers, including the Federatioin and his own empire. The Dominion also had the reputation of being an aggressor as well, a future threat to their side of the wormhole. That had largely been the consensus view taken by most of the worlds of the Alpha quadrant. The Dominion had put the frighteners on the entire quadrant - indeed the Klingons had used the pretext of the civilian uprising on Cardassia as "proof" that his homeworld had been infiltrated by this Dominion, so they could clandestinely take over the government behind the scenes. It would have been easy for Dukat to laugh at such absurd paranoia, had it not had so devastating effect on his people. He'd even heard rumours that a clique of Starfleet officers had attempted to overthrow the Federation president as they didn't believe he had the necessary mettle to deal with the Dominion threat. Dukat didn't know if the rumours were true, but he knew that the fears of the Dominions intentions were not without foundation. That Romulan fleet Turkino had mentioned was testament to their power and willingness to resort to guns when times got tough. He also knew that his fellow Cardassians had been victims too in that joint failed pre-emptive attack on the homeworld of the Dominioins founders. The Obsidian Order and its ghastly ex head Enabran Tain; the man who spearheaded the rogue attack, had been wiped out - such was the ferocity of the Dominion counterstrike. Dukat wept no tears for the deaths of those Order agents and their overweight chief spymaster. But he had known that members of the Central command had been on those ships, as the spies couldn't have flown them alone without some extra help.

Dukat turned the tables a little on Weyoun by mocking his greeting. "Ah, you are from the Dominion are you Mr. Weyoun? Now your reputation certainly _does_ precede you. Ask the Obsidian Order about that!" he paused for dramatic effect, a look of feigned puzzlement before he added "No I suppose that would be a bit of a moot point now!" Weyoun smiled, though it was through gritted teeth - the invasion and its fall out was clearly the Terren elephant in the room regarding their peoples. "Weyoun will do just fine Gul Dukat. I like an air of informality in these diplomatic situations, they can be such buttoned up and stuffy affairs. Don't you agree Gul Dukat?" Dukat found the mans overt familiarity just a trifle grating but he nodded in acknowledgement, not at the sentiment, but just to shut him up, what with all his keen love of usingf flowery verbal diarrhoea "As your good Legate Turkino pointed out, your people do appear to have fallen upon hard times and that pains me to see. Your empire is considered quite an inspiration to the founders of our Dominion. How your people struggled up from poverty and disease to build an interstalller empire from scratch, without succumbing to despair or extinction. What drive and determination your species must possess! Your empire was a shining jewel in your quadrant. A glittering tower, the heights of which, assorted mediocrities in the alpha quadrant could only ever dream of scaling! These actions your people took suggest a strength of character and commitment to a strong work ethic that we in the Dominion really admire. These values are Dominion values, and it saddens us to see such a great empire brought down by decadent and grasping powers such as the Klingon empire!"

Dukat listened to this vacuous public relations waffle with half an ear, but deigned himself to give a half hearted acknowledgement to Weyoun "Thank you, it's good to know someone out there at least appreciates the triumphs of the Cardassian Union." Over the course of Weyouns spiel, Dukat had ascertained three things about him and his possible agenda here. Firstly he was humouring Dukat and the Cardassians, which meant he clearly wanted something off them or himself. Secondly he had simply glossed over Dukats comments about the Order, meaning he didn't want to discuss it if he could avoid it, and thirdly he seemed to dislike Klingons as much as the he did the Federation, Dukat concluded the latter was seemingly an attempt to make diplomatic overtures to his people at the expense of the other two powers. To play them off against the union in his audiences mind. The core of what Weyoun was really up to, was still a question that evaded Dukat though.

Weyoun smiled at Dukats acknowledgement and clasped his hands together in the rapacious manner of a Ferengi smuggler attempting to stash a bag full of someone else's latinum he'd chanced upon "Indeed we at the Dominion do Gul Dukat! With the discovery of the anomoly linking our part of the galaxy with your own, the Dominion has decided to take it upon itself to build cordial and long lasting relationships with our new neighbours in the Alpha quadrant. As we now have to share our galaxy together bound by the tunnel in space, what with the discovery of the so called "Bajoran wormhole", this unforeseen act of nature has given the founders of our glorious Dominion, cause to extend the hands of friendship to those cultures in the Alpha quadrant they feel are spiritually aligned to the ideals the founders themselves set out to create in establishing the Dominion. We only seek peaceful co-existance with our new neighbours, despite what some on your side of the wormhole may claim otherwise."

Dukat took in what Weyoun was saying; he wanted to compose his reply without rushing in. He didn't trust the Dominion; far from it. But these people clearly wielded power and influence and Dukat knew that both of these qualities were not ones to be dismissed so lightly when they chanced your path. Perhaps the Dominion was just too powerful and influential to even attempt to just ignore or dismiss anyway. One would have to deal with them good or ill. Was it not better to be in the former camp? He eventually replied, hoping to catch Weyoun off balance a bit and catch him out a little to see what he was really after. "I assume these kindred cultures your founders are so keen to establish a dialogue with include my own people or we wouldn't even be having this conversation in the first place?"

Weyoun nodded enthusiastically at this in affirmation and Dukat rose his chair he hadn't quite finished yet. He was taller than Weyoun and wanted the alien to look up into his eyes. Dukat put it down to primal posturing, looking like he was negotiating from a position of strength. "You see us being the best of neighbours is all good and well, but let us not remind ourselves that relations between the Dominion and the Alpha quadrant have been; how can I put it –strained, to say the least since we made contact with your empire. I have it on fine authority by my good friend Captain Benjamin Sisko, that when he was incarcerated by your troops, your forces attacked and destroyed the USS Oddysey that had gone to rescue him, even though she was clearly retreating from the combat theatre, back to our side of the wormhole, so badly damaged from your firepower that she was unable to fight back from the onslaught. You also destroyed the New Bajor colony that was set up in the Gamma quadrant to deter others from our side doing likewise. Although I can partially sympathise with you on that one, as the urge to get those Bajorans out of your hair can be a tempting one I suppose. The power the Dominion wields is great, but would it be used against my own people? Lets face it you seem eager enough to wield it if these examples are the norm for you. You understand my reservations don't you. There is; how can I put it diplomatically – "history" there"

Weyoun held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture and Dukat was a little dissapointed that the alien had been more prepared for a question of this nature than he had expected. "The destruction of the Oddysey was... regrettable. We thought that there was the danger that if she returned to Federation space she could have signalled for reinforcements on the other side of the wormhole. As far as we knew the Odyssey was at the head of the invasion force into our space. You could see how finding the commander of the space station closest to your side of the wormhole on one of our worlds, as well as a colony of Bajorans from that same system on the other side could have been construed as an attempt to infiltrate our territory. It was; as I said regrettable. The action we took, but the Federation must take their share of the blame too. Infiltrating our territory on the spurious pretext of "exploration.". It saddens the founders that early relations between our quadrants were soured by incidents like this, but the Dominions desire to establish peaceful and productive relations is genuine I assure you. There is "history" as you say. But is history not a work in progress Gul Dukat? Let us work on a newer, more benign foundation with our two peoples."

Turkino turned to face Dukat now, his voice concilitory. "Dukat I know you have concerns about the early encounters with the Dominion but please hear Weyoun out for me. He has some "interesting" proposals to say the least. He has the means to help our people, but in such a way that won't diminish us in the eyes of the rest of the quadrant." Turkino gestured to Weyoun. "Weyoun, show Dukat what you showed me. I think he'll be as intrigued to see it as I was." Weyoun complied and on the mess hall display screen an image of an armada of hugely impressive warships was visible. Their hulls that mysterious combination of purples; greys and blacks, and the luminous sections of the nacelles and riveting where drive plasma was stored, glowing in that purply puce colour that gave them away as Dominion vessels, though these were far larger than the ones he had been briefed on from joint intelligence on the Dominions hardware, from the other powers in the alpha quadrant.

Turkino was right, he was impressed. If the Cardassians had access to ships like that he was sure the Klingons would flee in the space of a day, their sense of warriors honour seemingly melting away like ice in spring at the sight of these beasts. Weyoun gazed admiringly at the Dominions top toys and without turning away from the image he retorted "Did you know that the Dominion has never had a serious incursion into our borders for two thousand years." Dukat didn't know this, but if he was telling the truth, he wasn't surprised. It would have taken a brave fool to toy with that sort of firepower.

Weyoun began talking again but neither of them took their eyes of those ships "One of the best signs of good neighbours is good fences don't you think? The founders are concerned about the factionalism and lack of general good order and civilised rule on your side of the quadrant. They feel that perhaps we ought to extend parts of our defence umbrella to those parties in the alpha quadrant that would be receptive to it. That in a gesture of openness and friendship we may enter into the possibility of technological exchange, alongside those of a cultural nature with those parties, if of course they want it."

Dukat said nothing in response to this pitch by Weyoun, but he continued to stare at those ships that would have put the fear of God into the Klingons, if Cardassia had been in possession of such hardware and the Klingons hadn't actually killed all their gods beforehand when they got in the way, if their theology was to be taken at face value that was. The opportunities Weyoun was offering were potentially huge, but did they outweigh the risks? Dukat noticed that Damar seemed restless and was bristling at all this, he was clearly agitated and wanted to insert his own input into the discussion. Dukat decided to let him speak; for one thing it gave him a chance to digest the full scale of what was being offered to him without having to give an answer straight away or look indecisive. He was sure that the Dominion would see that as weakness and he really didn't want to show weakness in front of these people. "My executive officer would like to ask you something I believe. May he?"

Weyoun looked a little surprised at this request but he acquiessed. "Of course! Your subordinate may submit any question he wishes." Dukat had to compose himself to keep a straight face as he witnessed the deep scowl emanating from Damars. Did the alien know he had caused such offence to Damar by the way he had addressed him? Had he deliberately insulted him? Damar, always never one to mince his words – came straight out with what was bothering him. "As you seem to be evading the issue, I'll just ask the question of you directly? Are we expected to believe that all is just forgiven and forgotten amongst us all? What with the aborted Obsidian order / Tal shiar assault on the Dominion homeworld? When a faction of my people carried out an attempt to lay waste to the planet, and your founders along with it. That is to put it mildly; not the best footing to start off a relationship. Some may think your Dominion might put revenge on my people for what happened over friendship with them, in light of our past history. Just an observation of mine by the way. Nothing personal to you or your Dominion. Consider it just a private observation from a mere subordinate about the whole affair."

Weyoun shrugged his shoulders in response to Damars blunt candour - as if weighed down by regret, but Dukat sensed it was merely a theatrical gesture and not genuine. Turkino for his part looked worried. Had Damar single handedly derailed any potential relationship with his insinuations? "Ahhh.." Weyoun said, pausing briefly "The failed attack on the founders homeworld. You are right Glinn Damar, I can't skirt the issue of that unfortunate incident between our peoples. But fear not Glin Damar, we appreciate that it was a rogue operation spearheaded by Enabren Tain and that your then government was not privy to the plans until after the invasion was fully spearheaded. The blame as far as we can see died with Tain and the Order in the Omarian nebula incident. We consider the whole affair to have been a purely self defensive one on our part, a necessary evil to preserve our empire. The founders have deemed that once the "issue" was dealt with all blame and vengeance ended there. The Dominion now considers the matter officially closed. I hope that allays your fears sir. Why, indeed I would have thought that you in the military would have seen the whole incident as somewhat of a mixed blessing in disguise. It is no secret that there was any love lost between the Central command and the Order. Perhaps as an unintended consequence, we inadvertently dealt with one of your fiercest rivals for you. You have to keep an open mind about these sorts of things, don't you agree?"

Damar was so angry at hearing this that he had to physically restrain himself from going over to that alien and decking the odius little worm straight onto the mess hall floor. Did he take them all for fools for believing that they were supposed to believe the rubbish he was spewing at face value? For Weyoun to try and pass the premeditated annihilation of those ships in the Omarian nebula as an act of self defence was absolutely ludicrous. The ships had been lured to the founders world which had been evacuated beforehand after the Dominion learned of what was to take place. Whereupon they had amassed an armada of hundreds of Dominion ships that had been waiting there in the nebula itself, ready to pounce. In all only two survivors managed to escape on a captured Starfleet runabout. The Dominion had left no other reported survivors. As for his comments about the loss of the entire order, despite the fact that Weyoun was partly right, and that he had no love for the Order and Tains questionable role in being the brains of the whole tragic affair. Damar was incensed that Weyoun could jokingly dismiss the murder of his fellow Cardassians as if it had turned out in the end, to be some blackly ironic favour for his people. That he should be on some level, grateful about the pitiless slaughtering of those crews who however misguidedly – had attempted to preserve the safety of the Cardassian Union. Instead Damar just nodded curtly at Weyoun, the saccharine representative of an empire that had Cardassian blood on its hands. It was clear all you ever got from the likes of him were glib weasel words and a pack of lies every time he opened his mouth.

Dukat spoke once more. "Hah! I suppose you do deserve some credit for putting the Order in its rightful place. But I still don't understand why you approach this ship. Myself?" Turkino said "The civilian government would be too worried about guilt by association by being approached by a Dominion agent of Weyouns stature. Remember that the Klingons wanted to capture them as they believed they themselves were Dominion agents, and judging by the way they are so eager to appease the Klingons, would they even be receptive to what the Dominion has to offer. We need people like you, who can see the bigger picture. A man who doesn't shy away from tough decisions and the long struggles just for some temporary respite. Consider what Weyoun has proposed and keep an open mind that's all I ask of you. He is willing to stay in touch with you if you wish it, and he will provide you with the means to do so covertly."

Dukat smiled sadly "I am but a man with a ship that is dead in the water. I don't think I'd be much of an asset for the Pakled waste disposal authority, let alone the mighty Dominion. Not in the condition we are in." Weyouns eyes lit up at this. "You are going to like this Gul Dukat! I know that all this talk of future friendships and possible technology trade sounds like airy promises. But what if I was to offer you something a little more tangible? A token "gift" so to speak, to mark the start of our new relationship and to prove our desire for friendship is genuine." Dukat humoured him "Ah! I suppose you just happen to have a Klingon bird of prey in mint condition in your possession, just lying around for us?"

Weyoun laughed at this. "Unfortunately not that! But set course for these co-ordinates in this Kuiper belt and you'll see what I mean?" He handed Dukat the co-ordinates of a small Kuiper object about one hundred thousand kilometers from where they were now "See you there!" and with that Turkino and Weyoun of the Dominion beamed out of the mess hall; the residual sparkles of quantum energy from the diminishing transporter effect, the only sign they had ever been there in the first place. Dukat and Damar now found each other alone in the room; their only other companion was the many thoughts they had on this unexpected encounter.

Dukat broke the silence first. "Well, Legate Turkino certainly has been mixing in strange social circles recently. What did you make of this Weyoun fellow Glinn Damar." Damar frowned at the question and Dukat knew it was partly because he didn't like their recently departed guest, and he knew that his analysis of him may not be what his superior wanted to hear. "Sir with all due respect, if you were to shake hands with Weyoun I'd double check that you still had all your fingers still attached on there when you finished the handshake. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw this ship." "Go on." said Dukat encouraging his XO to voice his concerns about Weyoun. "I don't trust him because he was feeding us lies. The battle of the Omarian nebula wasn't self defence by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't think his excuse about the destruction of the Odyssey carried water either. I also find it impossible to take him at his word that the Dominion has any intention of either forgiving or forgetting our people's role in that attack. Those Dominions don't strike me as the forgiving type. I feel we must bear that in mind with a regime that uses terror as an instrument of state and military policy, an instrument that could be used against our own people. State terror is the only way you can really describe the kind of attacks they carried out on New Bajor and the aforementioned Odyssey."

Dukat spoke now "Yes, for my part I feel that Weyoun was after something, quite what I don't know. But he did seem awfully keen to..." Dukat paused for the exact word to convey the term he had picked up on in Weyouns words "..humour us didn't he?" Damar shot back "I think he just wants to use us sir. Use the union and our people to benefit his Dominion" It was Dukats turn to frown now. "Damar stop being so naïve, of course he wants to use an alliance to benefit his own, that's the basis of almost all diplomacy. It's no surprise to me that Weyoun stands to gain substantially from a pact with our people. But look on the flipside Damar, can we be clever and cagey enough to use him back, benefit ourselves at their expense, in such an alliance? If we could get our hands on some of their technology it would easily turn the tables on both the Maquis and the Klingons. In one stroke, with a possible alliance of sorts, we could alter the balance of power to be back on our side again and not have it going all our enemies' way for a change."

Damar stiffened and looked his superior in the eye. "It is true that the philosophy of my enemies enemy being my friend is a good starting point for forming alliances, but not when in their heart they remain your enemy as well. I fear the Dominion is an enemy." Dukat matched Damars gaze, struck by the starkness of his pessimistic view. Digesting those words Dukat found he had the contradictory feeling of being in a position to get his hands on the advanced technology, with the less fruitful downside of Damars warning coming to pass. It was disturbing but exhilarating as well, a truly dangerous road ahead with massive rewards and pitfalls. Could anyone steer that course and survive the duration of the journey without being badly scathed he wondered? Dukat mentally shook these thoughts to one side for the moment and decided to press on with the next course of action. He brought up the co-ordinates he was given by Weyoun and ordered that they set course for them. It was time to see what Weyouns "gift" was, and more importantly; what he was really up to.


	7. A Brilliant Gift

**7. A Brilliant Gift. **

THE Neprem arrived at the co-ordinates given by Weyoun, and Dukat who was still in the mess hall watched them approach the mass of ice and rock floating folornly out here in the dark expanses of El-Gatarks Kuiper belt. There was nothing to really discern this five kilometer wide hunk of old rock from any other you would find in a region such as this. Dukat saw no special gifts from the Dominion anywhere to be seen, just that rock. Dukat did mentally consider that they could have been led into an ambush in the remote fringes of the system, but thought that unlikely. If Weyoun had wanted them dead, they most likely would have been so already.

Dukat was alone in the mess hall and Damar was coordinating this rendezvous covertly from the rest of the crew back on the bridge. He could well imagine that the rest of the crew must be racking their brains as to what was going on, and why had the XO basically commandeered the entire bridge under the cloak of silence, slaving all their master displays to his own consoles. They would be utterly in the dark, but knew better than to try to demand an explanation from their superiors. Cardassian crew members were not in the habit of questioning their superior's orders. Dukat was starting to get agitated just sitting there staring at this rock without an explanation for why they were here. Dukat didn't appreciate being kept waiting like this by this Weyoun fellow, but he had a horrible suspicion that that weird little man was playing games with them; making them wait out here.

Dukat walked over to the ships replicator stand and ordered a raktajino. He'd developed quite a taste for this wholesome hot beverage during his command of this vessel. Dukat let the tankard of steaming liquid cool down on the nearby table, and was just about take his first sip when the comms panel lit up. He halted his motion to reach the mug and said quietly to the other person who hadn't been put through yet "Ah Weyoun, your timing is excellent yet again." He went over to answer the hail and Weyouns grinning visage filled the display. "He really did have such an irksome face didn't he?" Gul Dukat thought to himself. "Ah. Gul Dukat! Thank you for being so kind as to join me out here. I said we had a small token acknowledgement of our new friendship for you out here, and I am pleased to say you will not find us wanting. We are ready to provide you with our "gift" to your good self and your fine crew. After all we at the Dominion don't break our promises to good friends"

Dukat refrained from cringing at Weyouns flattery overkill, but it was becoming rather tiresome all the same. "You're most kind Mr. Weyoun. I appreciate the thought behind it, but I hardly think that asteroid there is a practical gift, for one thing it wouldn't even fit in the Neprems cargo bay!" Dukat knew that the asteroid wasn't this gift Weyoun was going on about, although he hoped his joke would hurry Weyoun up into revealing what it was in reality. Weyoun laughed at the joke and replied "Oh you are quite the humourist Gul Dukat! You are right though, our gift is of much more practical value to you and your crew than the asteroid itself. If you be so kind as to allow me to beam on board I shall reveal all to you. I'm sure your anticipation is eagerly stoked is it not?"

Dukat just nodded at this, he complied with the request and soon he was joined once more by Weyoun. Weyoun gave him some more coordinates which brought them on a course to collide dead centre with the equatorial region on the narrowest side of the asteroid irregular surface. Dukat was losing patience with Weyouns games now, nearly the entire crew were flying blind here and he was taking them on a course that could lead to another crash. "Weyoun! Why have we set course for a wall of ice and rock? If that's your idea of a gift then frankly you can keep it!" Weyoun looked unconcerned that they were apparently going to smash into the asteroid. "As I said Gul Dukat, all will be revealed in good time." and with that he tapped some buttons on a communicator type device that was wrapped around his left wrist, obscured at first by the garish jacket he was attired in. Dukat watched in awe as the wall of rock suddenly vanished to reveal the partially hollowed out interior of the asteroid inside of which was what looked like a drydock. The dock was composed of interlocked ring shaped segments that were stacked vertically, spaced about twenty metres apart from each other, one after the other. The segments were faceted so they could expand and contract to fit different sizes of vessels. This one appeared to have been configured to accommodate a bird of prey. Dukat guessed that the asteroid wall that had "dissolved" was some form of holographic illusion to conceal this base inside it, until he realised that it wasn't just a stationary prefabricated dry dock base, it was a ship in of itself, with the dry dock mated to command hulls underside. On the base of the dry dock section of the ship was a secondary hull that had cantilevers attached on either side which at the end of each was a warp nacelle. These cantilevers were directly horizontally aligned to the hull itself, but Dukat suspected that they were hinged on, and the angle the cantilevers were orientated to could be altered to slope diagonally downwards to provide an optimum warp field geometry in interstellar flight, as the ship looked clumsy with the way they were locked into position to leave more room to fit in the asteroid. "How in hell did they manage to sneak this thing through the wormhole, right under Benjamin Sisko and Starfleets very noses?" he thought. Had they assembled it in the Alpha quadrant or shipped it through in parts by third party liveries transiting too and from the wormhole? Cloaking technology perhaps?

Dukats mind was racing with questions that he started to fire at Weyoun "How many ships have you managed to deploy in the alpha quadrant Weyoun? How did you manage to sneak such a ship past Terok, sorry; Deep space nines sensors like that?" Weyoun replied, his response terse, "I'm primarily a diplomat, I handle negotiations not military deployments. I honestly don't know how many we have. Sorry you are asking the wrong person." Dukat didn't think Weyoun was being honest with him about this but even if he did try to push for an answer, he was sure that any "answer" would likely be fabricated anyway. "I presume this gift means that you are going to repair the damage to the Neprem. I hate to pick holes, but although you have some form of space dock, without specialist parts from a Klingon shipyard you aren't going to be able to fix up our ship to operational capacity."

Weyoun smiled at this. "That's not a problem, we won't need to. Your ship is.. compatible." Dukat was so stunned at this response, he thought for a second that he had caught Weyoun at cross purposes "What do you mean we won't.." Dukat was cut off as the Neprems forward motion was halted by the docks arrestor beam, and the silvery blue panels on the interior sides of the rings that formed the walls of the dock began to glow as if some vast power source was running through them. It was then Dukat understood what Weyoun meant, this wasn't just a space dock, it was a giant replicator as well! This must be a kind of factory ship to fabricate new vessels and repair them in situ whilst on the move. "You look impressed at our replicator ships Gul Dukat. They are brilliant are they not?" Weyoun was right there. These things made Federation industrial replicators look like the one in this ships mess hall.

Weyoun switched the view on the display to the damaged wing of the ship "Observe please. You won't want to miss it!" Dukat watched as the outer layers of the wing were being dissolved away by the quantum effect of the replicators transporter beams. It was as if the replicator was peeling away the layers of the ship, digesting them for study and reducing them to their elemental parts to reconstruct them back again in their undamaged state. It was an analysis not too far from the truth of what was being witnessed. Damar came through on the comm system and Dukat knew that it must be urgent as he had requested not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary, and from the hint of alarm in his voice it was a very urgent matter indeed. "Sir, repairs to the Gespagh are proceeding considerably faster than we have expected. They appear to have cannibalised a warp drive from a Vorcha class cruiser as a substitute. She may be operational in the space of an hour, two at most! We should not remain stationary here as they won't have difficulty locating us." "Received Damar, I shall attempt to make preparations to vacate the system as soon as we are able. I shall contact you shortly. For now observe internal security and communication black out, unless in the case of extreme emergency. Dukat out."

Dukat turned to Weyoun. "Can we be repaired and operational in that time. Or could this ship provide defence till repairs are completed?" "This ship has strictly defensive capabilities Gul Dukat. It wasn't designed for a combat role. I do fear what defences we had would be drained if we transferred power to the replicators to complete repairs in the time we have till they get here. But I believe by boosting output to the replicators, it may be possible to complete the repairs before they get here, if you want the answer to the first half of your question." Weyoun didn't sound too convinced that they could finish them on time, so Dukat posed the defence question slightly differently. "If we are unable to complete them on time, would this ship be able to provide any cover for us? Buy us just enough time for us to retreat and regroup with you? Hypothetically speaking of course, if the repairs can't be completed." Weyoun was dismissive in his tone and said "I do not believe we would be doing your people any favours if the Klingon found us here with you. They invaded your space because they suspected we had infiltrated your government. You know how paranoid they are. Best for your people's sake that we keep a low profile at the moment. Don't worry Gul Dukat, we'll have you patched up and good as new before the Klingons are within a billion kilometers from where we are."

Dukat frowned. "I had a horrible suspicion you were going to say that. It seems I will therefore have to put my faith in your Dominion replicators to save the day." Weyoun beamed and siad "See Gul Dukat, we are beginning a new chapter in our relations. Is it not true that friendship is reliant upon faith and trust in one another? Just like yourself and I are doing now. Building our way up from the foundations, with the mortar of friendship." "Oh please!" thought Dukat, but he managed to keep his expression neutral. Dukat decide to change the subject a bit and voiced his plans for the future "I can't wait to be spaceborne again Weyoun, I can tell you that for certain. We were on an attack mission to destroy a couple of munitions freighters in Amleth, prior to being shot down by those wretched Klingon stingers. With my reckoning I think we could still be in position to ambush and destroy them, even with this unexpected setback to our schedule. I must admit I feel an almost primal surge of joy when I see those Klingon ships explode in my gunsights like a supernova. A personal thank you from me, for them invading my home and taking what was my people's birthright.

Dukat sighed wistfully and stared glumly at no one in particular, just like he was about to address a greater audience who weren't in reality there. "I just wish our leaders felt that way, but they've given up. Just want to try and placate the Klingons because they think we are too weak to stand up to them. I fear sometimes that might be an assumption not entirely without foundation." Weyoun stared at Dukat who continued his gaze at whatever had caught his imagination, and was intrigued. He knew that with the turmoil of thinking his mission had been ended so abruptly and seemingly permanently too, and the subsequent surprise of this strange avenue of salvation reversing his fortunes, offering him this most unusual of lifelines had taken it's emotional toll on him. Dukat was overwhelmed at such a shift in his circumstances like that, and was opening up his personal feelings and voicing a little bit of how he felt about it all. Getting it all off his chest so to speak. Weyoun knew that Dukat was perhaps more off guard than he usually would be, and he knew that with his finely attuned ability to read people - it was time for him to take advantage of this. "Such a brave man Gul Dukat, and such an asset to your people. I hope they appreciate the lengths you go to help you civilisation, and how your sense of patriotism and devotion to your peoples cause is a true source of inspiration and awe to all."

Dukat laughed mirthlessly at this "I wouldn't get my hopes up about that. Not the sorts who govern us now. It was different times when I joined the military, different sets of values back then. What was once seen as doing ones Cardassian duty… No longer it seems." Weyoun dismissed Dukats pessimism and shot back "Then the loss is theirs. As I have seen so many times before, you pursue your goals and desire to do right by your people, with such a determination and zeal. However as Legate Turkino noted before, these goals and desires can only be achieved so far with just one ship, no matter how single minded their captain may be. The Klingons do have other munitions freighters after all."

Dukat snapped back at this "Yes Weyoun I was aware of that thank you. I do realise that one ship pitted against an entire fleet does have its logistical disadvantages." Although it might have looked like Weyoun was just antagonising Dukat, it was his specific intention to bring this fact up in his negotiations. "I didn't mean to offend or belittle you Gul Dukat, please know that. But we must look at the bigger picture for what the future may hold for Cardassia, drawing from what we can see in the here and now. If your government is committed to a policy of appeasement then there are two most likely possible outcomes for your people. You become a scaled down client state of the Klingon Empire, at the mercy of vague and capricious Klingon promises about autonomy for your shrunken empire, and to halts in any further territory being annexed. Or you become some province on the Federation borders, where they expect you to behave like the good and docile Federation citizens you now are. Perhaps with assistance and friendship from my people we may open up a so-called third way for your people."

Dukat locked eyes with Weyoun, his expression was so impassive it was hard for Weyoun to gage what his true feelings at the moment were to what he had just said. He spoke, his voice was tight. "That's just idle speculation and you know it. No-one can predict the future with as much degree of certainty as you seem to be employing. Look at how my ships fortunes have altered in the space of a day. My people may yet find their way again. It's not the first time the empire has fallen on challenging times. If the opportunities present themselves we may yet seize the moment." Weyoun kept his gaze and calmly replied. "Possibly. But do you think during the height of the Cardassian Union your leaders would have proposed ceding half the empire to foreign powers? Would the Klingons even have dared and countenanced an invasion of your borders in the first place? These are situations you never thought you would ever see come to pass in your lifetime are they not?" Dukat didn't want to respond to Weyouns rhetorical questions as he knew the alien was right. The empire had suffered setbacks before, but this sort of malaise and defeatism from the top down was something altogether different. The invasion happened because the Klingons knew the Cardassians were an empire in decline. No longer to be feared and respected, just another easy picking to be subjugated.

The comm sounded again before Dukat had a chance to respond, and although he knew he had told Damar not to do so, he appreciated the unintentional good timing of his XO disrupting this awkward conversation. "Sir, installation of the Gespagh's new warp drive is complete. The support tenders appear to be powering up other ship systems now to restore her to operational status. I don't believe it is prudent to remain here any longer sir. Dukat acknowledged Damars message but advised him to stay put a little longer, which Damar complied with, though he wasn't entirely successful in masking the confusion in his voice at his Guls decision to just stay there as the massive Klingon ship reasserted its formidable firepower. Dukat returned the conversation with Weyoun to something less awkward and he said "I think it's time to see just what your replicators can do Weyoun. It sounds like we may not be able to stick around for much longer. I think you should return to your ship as well. You probably are better off keeping a low profile. This situation might turn ugly at any time."

Weyoun nodded at this, the gesture was deferential; almost like an alien version of a bow. Possibly a cultural idiom or something he thought. "I shall order our technicians to increase the replicators performance to maximum output and speed you on your way as much as we can. Remember what I said Gul Dukat, there is always a third way. As one wise warrior said to another, "Victory is life!" It's a popular motto on our side of the galaxy and might be helpful one for you in the future as well. You know how to contact me. Feel free to do so at anytime - especially if you find yourself in a tight spot. Weyoun out." Dukat was a little puzzled at Weyouns strange farewell. But then again he seemed like a strange individual anyway. Perhaps these overblown farewells were just part of his odd little ways. Dukat broke the link but he couldn't quite shake the thought that more had been said in that parting gesture than had actually been said. It was just a case of figuring out what that might be.


	8. The War Continues

**8. The War Continues.**

A LITTLE over an hour and a half later and the damaged wing section looked as good as new; for all intents and purposes it was, the replicator ship had simply used its matter converters to deconstruct the damaged sections of the hull right down to their constituent quantum parts and had reconstituted them as exact duplicates of the original undamaged wing section. Dukat had watched in awe as the replicator ship had rebuilt the wing starting with the internal support braces and the ships internal framework, moving up to restoring the hydraulics and thrusters in the interior wing cavities, then finally as the replicators began work on the exterior hull plating to finally complete the wing in its entirety - the plating appearing to be conjured up from thin air with only the transporter effect giving the game away to how that material just seemingly arose from nothingness. It had been like watching a time lapse holographic demonstration of a cross section of the wing being shown from the ground up. The repairs were almost finished and all that was really left to be done was to cold start the warp drive and wait for the energy intensive cloaking device to be recharged. Damar hailed the mess hall once more. "Sir, the Gespagh has dropped out of warp in the vicinity sir, and it is running thorough sensor sweeps of this whole region. I believe it is trying to locate us, I feel we really must not stay here sir." Dukat was finally going to take head of Damars desire to be elsewhere. "Gul Dukat here. Damar, I'm on the way to the bridge already, we are going to prepare to make ourselves quite scarce, I can assure you of that."

Dukat covertly signalled the dock to allow the Neprem to depart as he made his way onto the bridge. The crew knew nothing of the dominion factory ship, or that they were now in one piece for that matter. So it was no wonder that they looked surprised at their Guls apparent nonchalance at being stuck in a wrecked ship with a Klingon command ship wuthin spitting distance of them. Dukat heard the covert beep that informed him only, that the ship had cleared the dock and the holographic generators that masked the Dominion ship within had been switched back on so there was no need to maintain the level of secrecy toward the asteroid that was more than it appeared. "You may restore full sensor capabilities Damar, please switch the viewsceen on." The blank screen was once more replaced by the image of space, no sign to give away a replicator ship that was sure. For all the crew knew, it had appeared they had rendezvoused with that Kuiper fragment for some strange inexplicable reason, and just as inexplicably decided to turn tail with the Gespagh on their tail.

Braktor took a look at his engineering diagnostics and nearly fell off his chair in shock at what he saw. "Gul Dukat! I don't believe it, the wing... The warp drive, they're both at full operational capacity. Its, it's fixed itself somehow. It isn't instrumentation error either sir. It's not possible.. it shouldn't be, but this ship is at one hundred percent operating capacity! How..." Dukat turned to him. "Yes it is Braktor. I know that it is. Don't concern yourself, you haven't come down with cabin fever, this ship functions perfectly. And, if you were wondering; no you may not enquire how, all that matters for now is just that it is." Damar had an unusual expression on his face which Dukat caught in the corner of his eye. He knew of the meeting with the Dominion unlike Braktor, and he was suspecting that Weyoun was behind it somehow. Dukat realised he was at a loss as to how Weyoun had pulled such an audacious feat off however, and he was struggling to try and work it all out.

Damar was suddenly shocked back to reality by his console readouts and he shouted. "Sir the Gespagh has changed course to intercept us and she is charging weapons, I predict she will be in firing range in fifteen seconds." Dukat watched as the viewscreen display shifted to show the mighty craft alter its orientation so that it's deadly arsenal was now pointed directly at them. Damar added "Sir we are being hailed by the Captain of the Gespagh." Dukat shot back "Audio only, we don't want to blow our non Klingon identity yet." "This is Captain Ch'tarkj of the I.K.S Gespagh. You are ordered to lower your shields, stand down and prepare to be boarded. This is your only warning. Lowe..." Dukat ordered Damar to terminate the transmission as he realised what it was that the Gespagh wanted. "Ah! They realise that they have tracked down the mythical rogue bird of prey they've heard about. How has it mysteriously repaired itself? What other mysterious abilities does she possess? They want to capture us intact to find out. I don't know about you, but I don't fancy becoming the latest trophy to adorn the hall of warriors. If we can jump to warp eight, we should be able to outrun them for just long enough to get our cloak up and running. I don't think with that smaller warp drive they can do more than warp 6.5 at best."

Braktor looked up from his console "We will have to attempt a jump from a cold start on the warp drive sir. The plasma may not be warm enough to produce a stable warp field. I'll attempt to use Valtyrn channelling methods on the plasma. That might give us more stability at a lower temperature..." Braktor was cut off as the Neprems aft shields were raked by a volley of firepower from the Gespaghs weapons, it was a semi glancing hit, they were trying to lower the shields enough to disable their engines without hitting them hard enough to cause an explosion and thus destroying their prize. "By all means do so Braktor." said Dukat stabilising himself in his seat. Dukat prepared himself to see the photonic streaks on appear on the view screen; the sign they had entered warp, but all he saw was a shimmering affect that rippled on the screen for about half a second and then appeared to wink out and evaporate. It was the emergency warp field Braktor had attempted to create, and which had just collapsed due to lack of energy in the plasma to sustain it any longer.

The Gespagh fired again and Damar took evasive manoeuvres attempting to perform a barrel roll to evade the disruptor barrage, but the Gespaghs gunners were real sharpshooters and they got several hits in anyway, the shields frazzled and faltered under the onslaught and a dull; nasty sounding thud rang through the hull, indicating that enemy fire had penetrated the shields and had scored a direct hit. Dukat realised it was now or never, the next attempt to go to warp had to work or they were history. "Give it everything you've got Braktor. This ship has to go to warp or our campaign is over. Permanently." "The warp plasma, its too..." "It has to work or we'll all be too dead! I know that for a fact. Get this ship to warp speed, NOW!"

Dukat knew that with the cloaking device hours from being usable enough to hide them from sensors, their only chance of survival was for the warp engines to work and to allow them to escape from the Gespaghs targeting sensors. He could hear the warp drive making strange noises he hadn't heard before, though he knew that it was Braktor attempting to supercompress the plasma through the intake pipes directly to the core itself. A last ditch attempt to coax as much energy as he could to form a stable enough warp field. Dukat gave out a silent hope that the audible strain the engines were clearly under didn't undo all the work the replicator ship had done in repairing them, to even attempt to do this in the first place. Dukat gave Damar an order to give them perhaps at least a few seconds more to make their escape "Damar fire a spread of torpedoes towards the Gespaghs forward gun batteries. If we can't destroy them, we'll at least give them something else to shoot at as an impromptu diversion." Damar complied and added with surprise "Sir, our torpedoes now have an explosive yield one hundred and twenty percent of normal..." but he cut off his sentance knowing that Dukat wasn't going to let him in on how the ship had been repaired and why certain "upgrades" had been made, this one admittedly without even Dukats knowledge. The fired torpedoes didn't survive for very long, being hit by the Gespaghs weapons way before they could impact on its shields, but the gap between them slightly widened.

Dukat watched as the Gespagh's guns started to bare down on the Neprem. He saw how the cowled "head" of the primary hull seemed in sharp focus and exaggerated in size, compared with the secondary hull and nacelles, when on the angle of attack it was now orientated in. It was as if to emphasise to its quarry that their pursuer was looking at them squarely down the barrels of its guns. Dukat thought the Klingons must have employed some false perspectives on the design of the ship to produce this optical affect, a form of psychological warfare they seemed so fond of.

Braktor spoke up that he was preparing to engage the warp engines and he began the countdown "three, two one..." Dukat watched as the main energy weapon on the "heads" deflector dish lit up like as if to reveal a set of gaping; incandescent jaws. The Gespagh was about to deliver the crippling blow to end their campaign for good… Unless.. "Engage!". The ship lurched slightly but again there was no sign of any of the telltale ones you would expect to indicate they'd gone to warp. The Gespagh's main energy weapon was at full glow now and it was ready to fire. It was all over for them now. Victory was for the Gespagh. "Victory" Dukat sudddenly thought, and he heard that silken yet extremely irritating voice once more in his head. He'd said "Victory is life!...", "..might be helpful to yourself as well..." "…find yourself in a tight spot." Dukat suddenly realised that that strange little imp had left him with some sort of subliminal message. Perhaps if Dukat had read the message right, then the Dominion would help them against that ship - send reinforcements to help them fight it off. Use the Dominions mysterious technology to transport them out of harms way somehow. He brought up the code to contact Weyoun on his comlink and entered the Dominions battlefield motto as the message.

Damar was about to inform them that the Gespagh was about to fire, when the Klingon flagship did something no-one expected. The ships superstructure on the belly of the craft began rippling and bowing as if massive explosions were going on inside the bowels of the ship, the areas affected were where the munitions and torpedo bays were located. After about a second of this, the force of these convulsions were powerful enough to be able to overcome the structural integrity hull of the ship, and it began to rupture in several places and huge out of control plasma fires started to spew forth from weak points where these gashes opened out to vacuum. Dukat and his crew were astounded as the ship that was just moments ago about to seal their fate; began to break up as its superstructure was overcome by the explosions within. Deck after deck was being swallowed up in the fire and debris. The crew of that ship must have realised they had nowhere to seek respite from the calamity that engulfed them. The "head" began to list in a counter clockwise motion in opposition to the spin that the rest of the ship was tumbling about its axis. It appeared that the blasts had managed to sever it from the body. That once deadly main weapon was now overloading and the huge capacitors that regulated it were exploding due feedback from to the overload. Five seconds later the force from the detonation of the weapon erupted as a massive fireball which smashed the "head" to pieces as it burst outwards from within it, and on into the vacuum of space - the light so bright the bridge crew had to shield their eyes. Dukat ordered the Neprem to full impulse as he knew what was to happen next as this conflaguration reached its inevitable and deadly conclusion. As they hastily retreated to a safe distance, the warp cores magnetic containment fields in the in the heart of the ruin of the Gespagh all gave out due to the damage from the explosion. The devastated ship went up like a miniature nova that temporarily provided illumination for this normally dark Kuiper belt, like a very small secondary star which reduced the once formidable Gespagh to nothing more than a cloud of gas and dust, of which the largest physical remnant was no bigger than a piece of gravel.

The star gradually faded as entropy went to work and the Kuiper belt was dark once more with only the background stars to see on the viewscreen. Stood at his console in utter shock at their astonishing last minute reprieve, Damar whispered. "I don't understand it? Was it a weapons malfunction on board? We didn't fire at them." He just shook his head at the seemingly unsolvable mystery to the fate of the Gespagh. "I don't know Damar, I wish I did. However as it means that we have been given the chance to survive and fight another day, I think I'll settle for classing it as good luck at the hands of fate on our part. Now if you don't mind I need to make an urgent call. Set course for those munitions freighters in Amleth. I see no reason why, despite our recent "adventures", the mission should be aborted. You have the bridge Damar, I need to make an urgent call." Dukat went to his ready room. It was time he sought some answers to just exactly what had happened to that ship.


	9. A Cardassian Faust

**9. A Cardassian Faust. **

"AH GUL DUKAT! It's a pleasure to be speaking with you face to face once more. I take it you escaped from the dastardly clutches of the Gespagh unscathed." Dukat wasn't in the mood for a semantic joshing session with Weyoun and went straight in on the offensive. "Yes, although I'm sure you already know that we did. We've had a lot of strange goings on in El-Gatark since you and your Dominion turned up! I suppose grudging thanks are in order after all. You did manage to destroy the Gespagh for us somehow." Weyoun feigned shocked at this accusation, but he wasn't pretending very hard "How could I be responsible. Our replicator ship was hidden out of sight all the time. People will credit you, Gul Dukat with bringing down a Klingon command ship with one bird of prey. I feel it fair you should take the plaudits. Boost morale on the home front for your beleaguered people."

Dukat was annoyed at this. His ship had survived by a fluke - a conjuring trick engineered by Weyoun and his allies. His military prowess had counted for nothing in destroying that ship, and he felt patronised that Weyoun would even think that he would entertain the notion that he had any part in destroying that ship. "But I didn't though, did I! That's the point!" Weyoun held his hands up. "Technically yes, but what of it! People want to believe what they want to believe, and your people will want to believe in the legend of Gul Dukat, who took on that ship single handedly. You said that you wanted your people feared and repected again. Your "actions" are a step in the right direction towards that goal aren't they. The literal truth about your actual participation is immaterial. You have sent a message that your people are not to be trifled with once more. That the Klingons have a fight on their hands, and they can't be complacent in their military superiority. What really matters is that ship is destroyed and with it your people are set in motion in the direction you want them to be on. Who pulled the trigger is frankly irrelevant in the overall scheme of things, the bigger picture so to speak."

Dukat realised it was a waste of time explaining to a civilian like Weyoun, who didn't really grasp the concept of a soldiers honour, and therefore his objections about the manner of the Gespagh's destruction, so he settled for a disgruntled compliment instead "I'll give your Dominion credit though. That was a nice trick you pulled out there. How you "settled" the Gespagh problem. Care to make me privy on how you did it. Friends don't keep secrets from one another after all, do they?" Weyoun smiled mischievously and leant in closer towards the viewer in a conspiratorial manner "I suppose they don't, and it was indeed a good trick, but as the humans say – no good magician ever reveals his secrets. As I said what really matters to you and your people is that the Gespagh has been taken care of and the Klingons wrong footed. The choreography of that exercise is mere subtext. The end result everything."

Dukat frowned "I had a feeling you were going to say that too. Oh and by the way, I have another question for you which doesn't involve you breaking your magicians oath of secrecy. What is the price you ask for you ask of me, for you destroying the Gespagh? I know you said the repairs were a gift, but generosity only goes so far in my experience." Weyoun let out a friendly sigh "Such cynicism from a man like yourself pains me Gul Dukat. As I said the founders of the Dominion wish to cultivate friendly and productive relations with like minded powers in your quadrant. To see the Cardassian empire grow once more to take it's rightful place as a leading force to be reckoned with, an inspiration and model for others to follow on your side of the galaxy. I merely cultivated the soil of our relationship and watched your people make the flowers that will sweetly grow from our joint efforts. That in the end, is the only recompense the Dominion really needs.

Dukat made no pretence of swallowing the drivel Weyoun was feeding him, and replied as cynically unbefitting for a man such as himself "Ah, your doing this out of the kindness of that huge and bountiful heart the Dominion is so renowned for. I'm so moved I actually almost believed your platitudes at face value for a moment there." For the first time he had met the alien, Weyoun seemed lost for words. Dukat presumed he was trying to prevent their "alliance" from collapsing due to Dukats sarcasm. Dukat decided to step in himself, rebuild some bridges after his short attitude towards Weyoun surrounding the whole Gespagh incident. Although Damars stark warning about an enemies enemy being at heart your enemy too had stuck in his mind, perhaps a little too much than he cared, Dukat had to admit that Weyoun might not be a proven enemy yet, and what was certain was that he was a powerful and well connected potential "friend" as well. Dukat didn't want to dismiss the odd little fellow so keenly "I apologise for my tone Weyoun, your assessment about the kind of message the loss of the Gespagh has sent out was an accurate one though. I received a message from Legate Turkino prior to speakling to you. It seems in response to the loss of one of their flag ships, that the Klingons have temporarily pulled back all of their forces from the front lines and are regrouping in the captured territories. They've been severely rattled by what has happened, they seem to think it's some kind of top secret Cardassian black op we've pulled out there. The fact that the Klingons are paranoid morons isn't really news to anyone, but I do have some good news of my own. The military have used the destruction of the Gespagh as leverage to attempt to halt the civilian government from going ahead with the full scale capitulation they had in mind. For now those clowns are actually willing to yield to our top brass for once. Seems the public have a bit more fighting spirit in them and there have been public celebrations about the loss of the command ship. It's nice to see people back home have something to smile about for once. The government knows it can only push the people so far. They might not take kindly to watching them fritter the empire away for a slim grasp at the prospect of a half baked promise of peace."

Dukat was surprised Weyoun looked so serious at these developments; he usually feigned such smiley enthusiasm at the slightest bit of good news Dukat threw at him. "Oh, that's wonderful news Gul Dukat! I am delighted for you and your people. It warms my heart to see that the Dominion has served the needs of their new friends in such a positive and productive manner. I must however admit that I do have pause for concern though." "Go on" said Dukat who was curious about Weyouns subdued reaction to all this. "It is words such as "promise" "plan" and "attempt." that concern me. Promises after all can be broken, as can the best made of plans become so easily discarded just as soon as they are set in motion. Your people are in a step in the right direction for sure; however there isn't, how can I put it; "concreteness" in that direction yet. I'd hate to see all of our work undone by the narrower visions of lesser men than yourself; your crew and the good Legate Turkino. If you are willing to cultivate the relationship we have built in the last few days. To really cultivate and water it, who knows what we might grow to fruition in our garden? I would understand if you wanted to pursue your own plans to restore the empire independently as a people. The Cardassians are a proud race after all, and we will simply walk away if you wish it. I won't lie to you Gul Dukat, the tasks and challenges ahead for your people are formidable to say the least, and it will not be an easy journey ahead to restore you people back to their rightful place. It is my hope that with our new relationship staying intact and growing, we can make that transition for your people a little less "rocky". Despite my personal desire to maintain our friendship, it is your peoples future and the decision ultimately lies with you. Do you wish to remain in contact with the Dominion and myself, or would you simply like us to walk away. Forget any of this ever happened. We will honour either choice that you make."

Weyoun's purple eyes were boring down on him, imploring him wordlessly to take the opportunity their owner had just handed him on what he saw as a silver plate. Dukats mind flashed back to those massive Dominion warships and he had the mental picture of himself leading the armada, and under his command their formidable fire power was baring down on the Klingon invaders, eliminating those hated ships with impunity and restoring Cardassia whole again. He saw the ships eradicating Maquis colony after Maquis colony, the hapless terrorist band helpless to defend themselves from such superior firepower. He saw them subduing Bajor and the so called "Deep Space nine" now reverted as right and proper, back to Terok Nor, as it had once been under his stewardship. More disturbingly he found he had other mental images of those ships too, though these visions were far less pleasant. He saw those same ships, but this time he was certainly not heading the fleet. They were bombarding a planet with seemingly endless volleys of firepower, turning the civilisation below to fire and ashes. No one could hope to survive an onslaught like this. That planet was Cardassia Prime, and in the midst of this destruction he saw Weyoun being inaugurated as the new Dominion appointed high prefect of the whole of the Cardassian Union. Dukat was scheduled for public execution on what remained of the Imperial plaza. It was apparently Weyouns first official act of state policy in his new role. He went to his death knowing that in trying to save his people from invaders, all he had done was trade one conqueror for an even more dangerous one, and his people were paying the ultimate price in fire and blood. Dukat's minds eye saw his contemporary empire in its current condition, continuing to fall apart as it lurched from one crisis to another. The civilians handing the colonies to the emboldened Klingons, who in turn demanded more and more still. A campaign of military extortion to buy them off for a peace and security that never came. The Bajorans and Major Kira in particular; jeering as their one time masters slid into darkness and irrelevance. Those colonists in the warzones starved out and exhausted, reduced to eating tree bark and dying of epidemics not seen for thirty years. All his efforts on Bajor and this ship, forgotten by his starving and broken people whose only concern was trying to survive on the scraps and hand outs the Federation was willing to throw them for being good little Cardies. Intolerable, though unavoidable seemingly.

"Gul Dukat" Dukat realised he had become so caught up in these images he'd actually lost track of the fact that Weyoun was still on the other end of that comm awaiting an answer. Dukat put the images to the back of his mind and brought himself fully back into reality. "You looked a million light years away then. Have you come to your decision?" Weyoun looked a little nervous at what Dukat was going to say. Dukat even thought he caught him trying to subliminally utter "say yes." though it was likely just the pressure of the moment weighing on him. He had come to his decision. "Yes, I want to retain our relationship, though on my peoples terms not yours. This is our half of the galaxy after all, and you are guests of the Union territories and her people, at my pleasure. The decisions that affect my people's future lie with me, and because I am still not convinced of your real motives, and until I do find out what you really want, that is my terms in how I will conduct myself in the course of our new relationship. If I think you are overstepping the mark at the expense of my own people, all deals are off. Is that understood Mr. Weyoun?" Dukat was impressed at his tone and candour; it conveyed an air of formality and authority without seeming boorish and overly adversarial. Those assertiveness classes in dealing with outsiders, he had attended at the military academy had paid off after all it seemed.

Weyoun nodded at the agreement. "Excellent! I knew you would recognise the many benefits of friendship with the Dominion, and we feel your conditions that you stipulated are fair in light of the context of our new friendship. The Dominion will honour them to the letter as we do all with all the terms we have with our allies. I will enjoy working with you Gul Dukat, I am not at loath to deny that. These will be interesting and wondrous days ahead, and I am overjoyed to be sharing them with you that is for certain." Dukat was finding Weyouns boyish enthusiasm a little testing, but he smiled in acknowledgement at his new allies. "You are most kind Weyoun. I still have your contact details, so I can reach you at any time, but for now we have some munitions freighters at Amleth to attend to. All this negotiation has worn me out a little. I need to feel space at my feet, and seek out a bit of action, courtesy of my disruptors. See some ships burn down at my own hand. It's a military thing Weyoun, I'll understand if it sounds a little brutal to your sensibilities."

Weyoun chuckled at this. "Oh, I see! The only good Klingon is one floating in little parts in the vacuum, that sort of sentiment. Fires the blood I suppose! I could provide assistance for you if you like?" Dukat gestured and said. "No need! I think this is a victory that needs to be carried out by us alone this time around. It does wonders for the ships morale." Weyoun signalled he was ready to end their conversation, and let Dukat get on with his planned raid on the freighters. "All I can say then, for you and your crew is, Victory is life!" Weyoun then terminated the call, giving a kind of odd gesture just before he went that Dukat assumed was some form of Dominion military salute that they did at the victory is life bit. "Is there any other life worth living" Dukat said out loud to the empty ready room.

Dukat let out a heavy sigh, unburdening a tiny amount of the pressures he had been under in the past few days, and the bizarre trajectory that his campaign against the Klingons had suddenly taken. He thought about how his philosophy that to those so attuned, the universe handed out the opportunities he would need to restore his people back to greatness, and possibly Weyoun and that Dominion of his, was the key he needed to unlock and release that greatness once more. But Dukat knew that seizing opportunities like this could be a dangerous game. The Dominion seemed to be as venal as it was powerful. Weyoun could have destroyed the Gespagh at any moment, but had let them come within a whisker of death to be unwitting participants in some deadly stunt, with the Neprem as the bait. All of this to rattle the Klingons, supposedly for his peoples own behalf. Damar was right that Weyoun had lied about the cause of the Dominions past aggression towards the Alpha quadrant, and his real intentions were still unknown and hugely suspect. However there was no denying that Cardassia was seemingly locked in an unstoppable decline into insignificance and destitution. However proud his people were, they simply needed help to survive. Dukat remembered what his grandfather had told him when he was a child. How the really difficult choices in life were almost always between different situations that were all bad. You just had to be canny enough to pick out the least bad options. Dukat would just have to hope that Weyoun was the lesser of a myriad of evils. For Cardassias sake, and for his own.

THE END


End file.
